Indian Foundation for Butterflies – Butterflies of India

Mihir Chhatre: My obsession with the great outdoors began at the age of twelve. Within a span of few years, I had covered nearly seventy forts across Maharashtra. I have a special interest in butterflies, and have been a regular participant at the annual ButterflyIndia meets. I am also a keen photographer, having done a certificate course in photography from Fergusson College, and enrolled for a Diploma in photojournalism from Light & Life Academy in Ooty. Since 2008, I have led several treks and wildlife camps for Foliage Outdoors. I am a web designer and run my own proprietary web-designing firm, "Thoughtfulviewfinder Services".

Ullasa Kodandaramaiah: I did my PhD on butterfly phylogenetics and biogeography in 2009 from Stockholm University, Sweden. I am currently doing my postdoctoral work in Cambridge University, UK. My broad interests are in the field of evolutionary biology and I have worked on various aspects including biogeography, phylogentics, population genetics, wing-pattern evolution, butterfly-Wolbachia interactions, etc. Born and brought up in Bangalore, I did my B.Sc in Forestry from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it me or visit my website if you want to learn more about my work.

Krushnamegh Kunte: I am a naturalist broadly interested in all aspects of the biological world, from species communities to genes. I received my PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, in 2008. I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University, USA, until 2011. In 2012 I joined the faculty at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru (=Bangalore), as a Ramanujan Fellow. My research lab at NCBS investigates the evolution and organization of biological diversity with a special focus on speciation and morphological diversification in butterflies. Indian butterflies has been my passion for most of my life, and I have studied them since 1991, extensively surveying populations in the Himalaya, NE India and the Western Ghats. I have authored dozens of research papers and two books on various aspects of the biology of Indian butterflies. Read more at http://biodiversitylab.org or contact me by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you want to learn more about my research and writing, the Indian Foundation for Butterflies, this website or Indian butterflies.

Vijay Barve: I am an IT professional by training and nature lover by heart. My interests are biodiversity documentation, databases, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and citizens science. After completing Masters in Computer Science from University of Pune, I worked with Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT). I have also been associated with organizations such as WWF India, BNHS, RANWA, GBIF and MonarchWatch in different capacities. I was part of the core team to initiate DiversityIndia  in 2001 and have been coordinator since then.