Veerendra is an ecologist, fascinated by the resilience of wildlife in an increasingly human-dominated world. He is currently a PhD candidate at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR), Bengaluru. He completed his Master's in Ecology with a Gold Medal and was a DST-INSPIRE Scholar at Pondicherry University.

He has worked as a Research Assistant with the Human-wildlife Interactions Project at Wildlife Conservation Society–India, where he spent two years studying how carnivores, especially leopards, persist in the densely human landscape of Mumbai. His work broadly explores human-wildlife coexistence and how wildlife persists in human-dominated landscapes.

Veerendra has actively engaged with diverse audiences through talks and workshops on urban biodiversity and human–wildlife conflict. With experience in wildlife research & science communication, he aims to make ecology approachable and engaging, encouraging people to move beyond observation and start understanding the natural world. He believes that studying wildlife doesn’t always require remote forests - sometimes, all it takes is curiosity and a window. 

Besides ecology, he enjoys music, travelling and cats!

His Key Achievements:

1. GATE (Ecology & Evolution) - AIR 24

2. Gold medal in Ecology at Pondicherry University

3. Awarded the Presidential Best Student Gold Medal by the Vice President of India.

4. DST-INSPIRE Scholar