Raman Sukumar , wildlife biologist in India Born 1955-04-03 in India . Dr Sukumar is professor of Ecology at the Indian Institute of Science, honorary director of the Research and Conservation Centre (AERCC) in India'>Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, Bangalore, India. He grew up in Madras, and at the age of 15 Sukumar became interested in ecology and Conservation, and spent more time in nature. His grandmother used to call him vanavasi (the Tamil word for "forest dweller"). Sukumar studied botany at university and by then he had decided to become a Conservation scientist. He graduated from the University of Madras with bachelor’s (1977) and master’s (1979) degrees in botany. As ecologist, Sukumar started to study elephants in the wild in the late seventies, as well as writing three books on elephants and over fifty scholarly publications in the area of biology, which makes him one of the more important authorities on Asian elephants. In 1997, he set up the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, a public charitable trust that incorporates the Research and Conservation Centre (AERCC) in India'>Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, an organization that has carried out several field projects in India and other Asian countries on elephants and their habitats. In 1986 he joined the faculty of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science. From 1988 to 1996 he volunteered as Deputy Chair of the 1986: Joined the faculty of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science. 1988 to 1996: volunteer Deputy Chair of AsESG (the SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group of IUCN), and from 1997 to 2003 he served as Chairman of the AsESG. In 2006, he was awarded the International Cosmos Prize, Japan, the first Indian to receive this award.
