WRCS Trustees

Mr. V.B. Sawarkar (President)

Mr. Sawarkar is a renowned Forest Officer from Maharashtra cadre who has a long history of working with national and international agencies. Mr. Sawarkar retired as Director, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. His contribution as research officer at Melghat Tiger Reserve and as Head of Management faculty and the Dean, Faculty of Wildlife Sciences at Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has been noteworthy. Mr. Sawarkar is well known for his excellent teaching skills in the classroom as well as in field craft. He has taught at several national and International Agencies and Foreign Universities, on a wide spectrum of subjects. Mr. Sawarkar has authored more than 60 scientific papers and won several awards and commendations accredited to his name .Mr. Sawarkar has contributed to reports on status of the swamp deer and tiger in the terai region of UP, rehabilitation of the rhinoceros in Dudwa national park, problem of co-existence between elephants and people in West Bengal. Further, he has been involved in six-volume documentation of the collaborative project between the WII and the US Forest Service on Managing Forests in India for Biological diversity and Forest Productivity, authored ‘A Manual for Planning Wildlife Management in Protected Areas and Managed Forests’ that is being used by working plan Officers and PA planners. Post retirement, Mr. Sawarkar is associated with various state Forest Departments, Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, UNDP and with several public forums, Institutes and Colleges.

Dr. CP Mammen (Secretary)

Dr. Mammen is an electrical engineer from IIT (Mumbai) and has built a progressive career encompassing broad, multifunctional responsibilities in engineering and management. Dr. Mammen is a visiting Research Scholar at Stanford University. As an adjunct faculty member at IIT Bombay, he co-guided a number of student dissertations, seminars and design projects. He believes in nurturing on-going academic collaborations to keep abreast with the latest areas of research interest and future technology trends. He has tirelessly worked for creating industry awareness in the student community and attracting good students who could be potential employees. Has a broad customer base built with extensive travel and contact with most of the leading technology corporations all over the world. Dr. Mammen is an active wildlifer and trekker and enjoy outdoors and music.

Mr. Raghunath Iyer (Treasurer)

By education and profession Mr. Raghunath Iyer is an electrical engineer who became a Computer scientist from IIT (Mumbai). He is one of those lucky ones who have not have been sucked into the "IT" industry. He is actively involved in product designing combining hardware and software that have touched many users. Mr. Iyer is a versatile individual and indulges in a bit of everything ranging from masonry, carpentry, plumbing, fixing iPods and even camera lenses. He has a tool kit ready for all occasions that keeps the D-I-Y streak alive in him. Mr. Iyer manages to wriggle out of his super-busy life to indulge in bird-watching, trekking, photography and cycling. His keen interest in wilderness takes him to various places and he wishes to do his bit in keeping the pristine nature unspoilt. Mr. Iyer is well versed with South Indian classical music, plays the Veena and Piano. “Food is very intrinsic to our living” he admits and has listed several mouth-watering recipes on his blog. For a glimpse of his multifaceted mind and life, do visit http://iyerhome.com/blog/iyerhome.

Mr. K.J. Joy

Mr. Joy has a M.S degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is one of the founding members of Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune, India and is presently a Senior Fellow with SOPPECOM (www.soppecom.org). Mr. Joy has been an activist-researcher for more than 25 years and for eight years he was a full time activist with MuktiSangharsh Movement in South Maharashtra. He has a special interest in people's institutions for natural resource management both at the grassroots and policy levels. Mr. Joy’s other areas of interests include drought and drought proofing, participatory irrigation management, river basin management and multi-stakeholder processes, watershed based development, biodiversity, water conflicts and people’s movements. He has worked with Bharat GyanVigyanSamithi (BGVS), New Delhi in its watershed development and resource literacy programme. Mr. Joy was a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), Bangalore (now part of ATREE) for a year and was a Fulbright Fellow with University of California at Berkeley. Presently he coordinates the national level initiative, “Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (www.waterconflictforum.org; www.conflicts.indiawaterportal.org). Mr. Joy has published extensively especially on water issues. For his outstanding and commendable work on water conservation, KJ Joy has been awarded the prestigious T.N. Khoshoo memorial award (http://waterethics.org/k-j-joy-awarded-the-t-n-khoshoo-memorial-award-for-2016/ )

Dr. R.M. Sharma

Dr. Sharma was a scientist in Zoological Survey of India throughout his career and retired as Deputy Director from Western Regional Centre at Pune. Dr. Sharma obtained his Ph.D. degree on the study of gall midges from Marathwada. He also worked on other branches of insects throughout his career. He described several new species of gall midges from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana and eriophid mites from Andaman Islands. He studied butterflies from various protected areas in Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Madhya Pradesh. He prepared 21 online checklists of Indian Fauna. He has published more than 200 research papers in reputed National and International journals. He has also studied vertebrate species including Himalayan Wild Ass, Marmot and Edible Nest Swiftlet. He has written several articles in Hindi and Marathi and written several books. He has delivered several talks on All India Radio. He has been associated with several universities and colleges as a Ph.D. examiner. He has participated in several National / International Training Programmes, Workshops, Symposia and Seminar and Chaired /Co-chaired sessions. Worked in different capacities at PortBlair (Andamans), Solan (Himachal Pradesh) Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) and Pune centres of Zoological Survey of India. He has travelled extensively from Cold Desert of Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir to inaccessible islands in Andaman & Nicobar Region and studied the faunal diversity of the regions by conducting faunistic and status surveys. He is working as Subject Editor for online International journals.

Dr. Ashok Sreenivas

Dr. Ashok has a B. Tech and Ph.D in Computer Science from IIT Mumbai. Dr. Ashok has been associated with Prayas (Energy Group) in Pune since mid-2007. He currently works on issues such as fossil fuels, energy security and climate change. This involves analysing and understanding the realities for the Indian energy sector, and critiquing and developing policies and institutional structures that are appropriate to deal with the realities. He finds this journey both challenging and enjoyable. It has helped him understand many facets about energy and India that he would otherwise have been ignorant of. In addition to Prayas, Dr. Ashok is also associated with Parisar, a group working on environment in general and urban transport issues in particular. Though he is currently unable to devote attention to activities at Parisar, he continues to try and help in any way he can. After leaving his "professional" life in 2005, Ashok drifted to Parisar through some common friends and this gradually exposed him to the social sector and the challenges and opportunities there. Prior to working with Parisar and Prayas Dr. Ashok was part of the industrial research team of one of India's largest software houses for over 15 years.

Dr. Prasad Pathak

Dr. Prasad Pathak is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at FLAME University, India where he also serves as Assistant Dean, Research. His research about sensing environmental parameters, and about smart cities, has been published in International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research, Journal of Urban Affairs and other journals. He is working with international collaborators from Duke University, McGill University and Spatial Justice Centre at Winston Salem University about various research problems in urban environment and policies. He received his Ph.D. in Geography (GIS and Remote Sensing) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA in 2010.