Harini Nagendra

Harini Nagendra is the founding Director, School of Climate Change and Sustainability, at Azim Premji University.

She is internationally known for her research spanning over 30 years on forest conservation, and urban sustainability, with seminal publications in both areas of work in journals including Nature, Science, and PNAS.

She is a well-known public speaker and writer with a number of award winning books on ecology including Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future, and Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities.

Professor Nagendra’s awards include an Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award in 2013, and an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University in 2025. She has been a past Lead Author on the IPCC AR5 reports, Advisory Board Member to the 2021 and 2022 UNDP Human Development Reports, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Future Earth Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society and the Urban Knowledge Advisory Network, as well as on the Executive Committee of the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.

She also writes the acclaimed Bangalore Detectives Club series, a set of historical mysteries set in 1920s Bangalore.