Director & Founder

  • Dr. Himani Nautiyal is a Biological Anthropologist working as a postdoctoral researcher with Howard University, Washington DC, USA, and the National Institute of Advanced Studies, India. It is a well-known fact that habitat loss, due to anthropogenic activity, is a key factor driving the decline of many wildlife across the globe. The conservation of such species is possible only with the coexistence of people and wildlife. In the past seven years of her field research in the higher Himalayas, she strived towards developing a multidisciplinary approach as a means to identify and predict the critical factors driving distinct threats to biodiversity as well as to local communities. This helped her devise a one-of-a-kind paradigm for animal-human coexistence using primates (Himalayan Langur, which is a virtually unknown species) as a model since they are the ideal species for behavior studies. Based on her research, she has already started mitigation practices to facilitate the coexistence of locals and wild animals.

Directors

Co-Director

  • John Muir wrote to her sister in 1873 “Mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.” The phrase, abbreviated to its first seven words, signifies a plethora of emotions for adventure lovers. Virendra is one of them, but he looked at the full phrase.

    Virendra completed his BS-MS degree from IISER Mohali with a biology major. He studied the sleeping site choice of the Central Himalayan Langurs (Semnopithecus schistaceus) for his masters thesis. This project also became the stepping stone for his understanding of the vital parts that regulate the nexus of human habitation, wildlife habitats, and conservation of the Himalayan ecosystem. He also carried an exploratory study on the ecology of Chamba Sacred Langur (Semnopithecus ajax) where he learnt more about human-wildlife interaction. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree from the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Prof Julie Teichroeb. While studying the sleeping site pattern, he figured that there is a predictability in the travel patterns of langurs and the routes they choose.

    The aim of his doctoral project is to investigate the movement strategies of Himalayan langurs, naturally – as governed by the seasonality in the distribution of resources in their home range, and experimentally with the use of feeding arrays. He is interested in building bottom-up measures to promote wildlife-human coexistence (broadly) and human-primate coexistence (specifically) by focusing on the movement ecology of the wild animal species.

    He joined the Himalayan Langur Project in 2018 as a masters student and has since collaborated with Dr. Nautiyal, and joined forces with her to conduct community outreach activities as a part of their research goals. They have carried on regular classes for the children of the local community, and engaged in plantation activities with the local kids.

Co-Director

  • Coggeshall (she/her) is a Biological Anthropology PhD Candidate at Indiana University in PEEL.

    Elizabeth has studied and worked with a variety of alloprimate species for 10+ years and consequentially developed an interest in studying health and development in changing landscapes. Moreover, she has grown a particular love for mother and infants, folivores, and Asian monkey species, who are considerably understudied in comparison to their African and South American counterparts.

    She also focuses on community engagement, bioethical and ethnoprimatological theory, as well as visual anthropology and art within her research.

    These interests and experiences have led her to the Himalayan Langur Project, where she is conducting her PhD research on the behavioral and physiological responses of S. schistaceus mother-infant dyads and explores community narratives.

Research Team

  • Diganta Mandal from Kolkata, India is a Biological Anthropology PhD student at Indiana University in PEEL Diganta graduated with his MSc in Biotechnology from St. Xavier’s College in 2022. He started his research journey studying how biogeographical barriers and anthropogenic activities impact the genetic diversity in Asian Elephant populations of NE India for his MSc under Aaranyak, Assam.

    Diganta now works with the Himalayan Langur Project and has been contributing to the long-term behavioural study of the Himalayan Langur.

    Diganta’s current research focuses on how anthropogenic activities and biogeographical barriers affect the genetic diversity of Himalayan Langur populations.

Research Associate

  • Soumalya is a PhD student in Biological Anthropology at Boston University. He will be researching Himalayan Langur energetics across high altitude landscapes.

    He started with HLP in 2022 working in Kanchula and aiding in the collection of long term behavioral data.

    He has an M.Sc. in Biotechnology from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. For his master’s he studied variation in plant functional traits in tropical dry forests of Eastern Ghats.

Research Associate

  • Suraj had worked with the HLP since 2022 and is integral to the project success, as he has assisted on almost every individual project. He was born and raised in the valley and hopes to work for the forest department in the future.

Research Assistant

  • Amish is a PhD student at the University of Calgary and has an MS from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India. His interests lie broadly in Ethnobotany and Primatology. He is currently exploring the ethnoveterinary practices of the Palsi shepherd community of Chamoli district of Uttarakhand and the parasite ecology in the migratory herds of the Palsi shepherd community. He is also involved in projects assessing the ecological damage in the alpine meadows and challenges in education in the rural landscape of Uttrakhand.

Research Associate

  • Avirup Sinha is a PhD student in Biological Anthropology at the University of Florida. His research aims to study the bio-acoustics and diverse vocalization repertoire of the Central Himalayan Langur across various landscapes

    Avirup worked with the Himalayan Langur Project by assisting in the investigation of maternal behavioral and physiological responses in mother-offspring dyads to anthropogenic stressors (in collaboration with Elizabeth Coggeshall).

    He has an M.Sc. in Biotechnology from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. His research started with his masters thesis, where he worked on Asian Elephants in human dominated landscapes of Karnataka, where he studied the behavior and physiology of elephants, focusing especially on their musth state, under the Indian Institute of Science (ISC), Bengaluru. After he worked in collaboration with IISC and Kyoto University, in Bandipur and Mudumalai Tiger Reserve studying communication patterns and behavior of Asian elephants in wild and semi-captive conditions.

Research Associate

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  • Aarjav is a PhD student within the Department of Computer Science and in collaboration with the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Toronto Climate Observatory. His research interests include information infrastructures, human-computer interaction, and climate adaptation practices. He is currently exploring the relationships between communities, archives, and environment knowledge within the Himalayan region. He completed his MSc in ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) from the University of Colorado at Boulder and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Research Associate

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Research Assistant

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Research Assistant

Research Assistant & Birding Guide

Supervisory Board

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  • Sheela is from Dehradun, Uttarakhand and has an MS from Garwhal University. During her time at HLP, she assisted Elizabeth Coggeshall for her PhD research and collected long term group behavioral data.

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Alumni