Ms. Kalpana Chandel has been awarded a gold medal for marine biology by Pondicherry University. She has worked at the National Institute of Oceanography, CSIR to learn about various marine habitats and their ecological health. She has worked for three years as a senior research fellow at the Bombay Natural History Society, where she studied the interaction between avifauna and marine benthic fauna and had a chance to expand her knowledge of environmental impact assessment. She is currently engaged in community outreach and education for the preservation of riverine ecosystems and their biodiversity at the Wildlife Institute of India as part of the Ganga rejuvenation project. She is passionate about oceans and their conservation and believes that raising public awareness and sensibility is important for environmental protection and conservation.