ABOUT
We started KCRE in 2012 to enable people to connect intimately with nature. We understood that sooner people realized that they were not mere tourists but the torchbearers, the more the hope for the well-being of our planet. We realized it was imperative that everyone took pride in our natural world, understood their role, and most importantly possessed the knowledge and the tools to impact constructive change.
Our specialized programs, intimate nature stays, and outreach programs have successfully contributed to this new tribe of responsible citizens.
Our Motto Attitude matters most, make it green.
Our Mission To inspire and equip people to make nature first.
Our Vision To become a self-sustaining premier conservation centre that empowers right action through environmental education and state of the art scientific training in environmental field studies.
THE TEAM
P Gowri Shankar
Founder Director
Gowri Shankar is a wildlife biologist studying king cobras for close to two decades. He is a PhD candidate at North Orissa University, Odisha, India and a former exchange student at Uppsala University, Sweden.
His interest lay in Evolutionary Biology and is studying the phylogeography of king cobras across southeast Asia. He has authored and co-authored 11 scientific papers on king cobras. He also has more than 10 scientific papers on other herpetological topics and book reviews to his credit.
As a field biologist, he has been studying the natural history of king cobras for over a decade at Agumbe. As part of his study, he has rescued and relocated over 350 king cobras from distress situations and monitored over 50 king cobra nests. He was instrumental in initiating the pioneering radio telemetry study on king cobras and was able to discover the secret life of king cobras.
He has been featured in several wildlife documentaries like the
- King Cobra and I
- Secrets of the King Cobra
- One million snake bites
- Asia’s deadliest snakes
- Wildest India
- Wild India
- Mysteries of Wild India and
- Cobra King
by channels like the BBC, Discovery, NatGeo Wild, Animal Planet, Smithsonian and the National Geographic Channel and also served as a consultant to these channels.
In 2015 he was awarded the Herpetologist of the Year by the Swedish Herpetological Society. He is a TEDx speaker as well as TEDFellow 2020.
He believes education is the cornerstone of conservation and has initiated specialized workshops and camps to educate people.
Sharmila Rajasegaran
Co-Founder, Asst.Director
Prashant P
Operations Manager & Researcher
He is a knowledge bank on anything Agumbe, passionate about cecilians and snakes he is an inseparable part of KCRE personally and professionally.
Prashanth is a seasoned naturalist, manager, and well connected with the local communities.
Prashanth’s love for exploration and forests has taken him across the entire stretch of the Western Ghats. Having trekked most of this part of the world, he is a veritable knowledge bank about life in the Western Ghats.
A very kind and warm person, makes everyone feel at home at the centre. Very resourceful, a great friend to who know him.
Priyanka
Program Manager
Priyanka Swamy is a committed and passionate researcher who enjoys the outdoors as much as working in the lab.
At the lab, she has been using molecular tools such as DNA sequence data to investigate processes that generate and maintain biological diversity. She is curious to answer fundamental questions related to population divergence, adaptation and patterns of phylogenetic genetic relationships, biogeography and conservation. Apart from being a lab rat, she is always excited to work on the field and enjoys exploring new places.
She is actively involved in the study to examine phylogeography and contemporary population genetic structure of the king cobra within India and reconstruct the biogeographic history of O. hannah in Southeast Asia.
She also works on other taxa (frogs, lizards and snakes) to understand their systematics and phylogeny.
She is adept at conducting educational sessions on reptiles along with Gowri Shankar -both nationally and internationally.
COLLABORATORS & ADVISORS
Madhusudhan Shukla
Biodiversity Educator
Both people, environment, business and technology are dynamic.
Keeping pace with successive generations and ever-changing environment is a challenge. Seeking information from field researchers, naturalists, legal experts and research papers provides me with deep insights into our natural world.
As a Biodiversity educator, I convert these valuable inputs into actionable educative content to create awareness, sensitivity and a positive attitude towards the environment among peopl
Showkath Jamal
Advisor
Media Partners
