Work overview

Vibha Varshney

Vibha heads the Biodiversity and Food Unit at CSE. She has around 25 years of experience as a journalist and a researcher with the organisation. She works on research and advocacy on key issues of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. This includes following international negotiations, policy research, advocacy, communication and capacity building.

She has conceptualised the First Food series of books which connect the dots between nature, nutrition, and livelihood. This series has four books so far and promotes traditional cuisines based on local biodiversity. She hosts a weekly chat show on biodiverse food.

She enjoys delving into the linkages between society, science, and environment, and writes on health, science, food, and biodiversity. She conceptualised a series of thematic books on India’s health. So far, three volumes of Body Burden have been published and these provide state-of-art information on communicable diseases, non-communicable disease, and antibiotic resistance.

She holds a PhD in Botany from University of Delhi for which she studied the effect of plant extracts on stripe disease of barley.

Email: vibha@cseindia.org

Shimali Chauhan

Shimali is working as a Research Associate at the Biodiversity and Food unit at CSE.

She holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from Doon University, where her thesis focused on modeling and mapping the distribution of Hoplocerambyx spinicornis under climate change in the Sal forests of India, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing. Additionally, her minor thesis with TRAFFIC-WWF examined wildlife species seizures. She earned her B.Sc. in Life Sciences from the University of Delhi.

She studied the movement patterns of elephants in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, to inform strategies for promoting coexistence between elephants and local communities. Her work with the Wildlife Trust of India on the "Right of Passage" project involved monitoring elephant corridors and collaborating with communities and forest departments.

At the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, affiliated with IISc, she contributed to the Synchronised Elephant Population Estimation, 2017, focusing on data analysis and report writing. She was also involved in the creation of an atlas for Arunachal Pradesh, providing GIS-based imagery of elephant routes, corridors, and human-elephant conflict sites across the region. Furthermore, her engagement with the Indian Institute of Forest Management included projects on forestry plantation evaluation, carbon stock estimation, and assessing the production potential of non-timber forest products (NTFPs).

Her diverse experience reflects her commitment to advancing biodiversity conservation through collaboration with local communities and stakeholders.

Email: shimali.chauhan@cseindia.org