Harini Nagendra is Director, School of Climate Change and Sustainability, at the university.

She is known for her research spanning over 30 years on forest conservation and urban sustainability, with several seminal publications in both areas of work. Her interdisciplinary work on forests combines remote sensing, biodiversity studies and institutional analysis, and is recognised for elucidating the link between pattern and process in the human-dominated landscapes of South Asia. Her work on urban ecology and sustainability highlights the importance of urban ecosystems in providing critical ecosystem services and in shaping urban resilience and human well-being, especially for marginalised communities — an important global gap, particularly in the Global South.

For her interdisciplinary research and practice, she has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Cozzarelli Prize from the US National Academy of Sciences, the 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar Award, and the 2017 Clarivate Web of Science Award. She is an elected member of The World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, and the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. She has written over 200 academic papers, including recent publications in Nature, Nature Sustainability, and Science, and is on Stanford University’s list of the top 2% cited scientists in the world.

In addition to academic writing, she is deeply interested in public communication of academic research. She has written a number of popular books, including Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future; Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities; So Many Leaves, and Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities (the last three co-authored with Seema Mundoli).

She is a well-known public speaker and writer on issues of urban sustainability in India, with a monthly column, The Green Goblin, in the Deccan Herald newspaper, and anchors the University’s annual climate ​“festival of life” series – Rivers of Life, Forests of Life and Mountains of Life. She also writes the acclaimed Bangalore Detectives Club series, a set of historical mysteries set in 1920s Bangalore — the first book in the series was shortlisted for the Anthony, Agatha, Historical Dagger and Left Coast Crime awards, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2022.

Harini has been a past Lead Author on the IPCC AR5 reports, Science Committee member of DIVERSITAS and the Global Land Programme, Advisory Board Member to the 2021 and 2022 UNDP Human Development Reports, Expert Committee member, 2021 US National Science Academy Report on Operationalizing Sustainable Development to Benefit People and the Planet, and Editor-in-Chief of Global Environmental Change. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University, and has been awarded for extraordinary contributions over an extended period of time. She currently engages with international science and policy through her involvement on the Advisory Board of the Future Earth Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society, and the Scientific Committee of the Future Earth Urban Knowledge-Action Network. She is also on the Advisory Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Climate-KIC, the WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, and the Blanes Centre for Advanced Studies (CEAB), of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

She is also an Honorary Fellow at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick.