Sushil Saigal (away on PhD program) has about 10 years of experience in the area of community forestry. Prior to joining Winrock, he worked with the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD), New Delhi and Ecotech Services (ETS), New Delhi. While at SPWD, he coordinated the National Network on Joint Forest Management and was also closely involved with the Forest, Trees and People Program of FAO. At ETS, he was the Country Coordinator for an international project of the International Institute of Environment and Development, London, that looked at the possibilities of enhanced role of non-state players in the Indian forestry sector. He has published a number of papers and booklets on forestry related issues in India and abroad. He has also traveled extensively in the country and outside. He holds an MBA degree in Forestry Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and an MSc in Forestry and Land Use from the University of Oxford. He was a rank holder at both the places. He has also attended training at the East-West Center, Hawaii.

Brij Mohan Singh Rathore (Senior Advisor) is an officer of the Indian Forest Service belonging to the Madhya Pradesh cadre. Till recently he was the Member Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Biodiversity Board, where he was engaged with multi-stakeholders processes for conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of use of biodiversity and associated knowledge. As Conservator, Seoni, he continued his interest in community led conservation approaches through participatory silviculture. He has worked as State Program Director on Chhattisgarh – Jharkhand tribal development program. At Wildlife Institute of India Dehradun (1994-1999), he was engaged in designing and implementing training programs in the area of integrated conservation and development for PA managers, field staff, NGOs and local communities. He has worked with FAO, UNDP, IFAD and WB in the field of capacity building for NRM and biodiversity conservation, both within and outside the country. He has been instrumental in initiating joint forest management in the state of Madhya Pradesh.  A gold medalist in masters ( Botany)  from Agra University, he is recipient of State Governments Gold medal as well as the national award "Indira Priyadarshini Vriksh Mitra Award", for excellence in community led forest management.

Mamta Borgoyary (Group Coordinator, Forest Management Group, and Senior Program Officer) has done her MPhil in Economics, from the Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. She has fourteen years of research experience in the area of livelihoods and community based natural resource management, with special expertise in designing and assessing livelihood and poverty alleviation programmes and social policy analysis. She has worked extensively in the area of social and economic impact assessments and evaluations of donor funded projects, policy analysis, community based watershed management, issues of food security, natural resource economics and poverty reduction through renewable energy. Earlier, as the principal team member, she was posted at the Asian Development Bank, Manila for a month to work with the Energy division to help them develop a poverty reduction strategy in energy projects.

Chetan Agarwal (Group Coordinator, Incentive Based Mechanisms Group, and Senior Program Officer) has worked to sustain forests, in the Western Himalayas, nationally, and elsewhere in Asia. His interests include market and regulatory analysis for sustainable production of forest produce and ecosystem services, community ownership, and the application of tools such as certification, incentive mechanisms, GIS and Remote Sensing for the same. Chetan has a masters in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), and a masters in public affairs (environmental policy) from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), Indiana University, Bloomington.

Sudipto Chatterjee (Group Coordinator, Biodiversity Group, and Senior Program Officer) is an M.Phil in Ecology from School of Environmental Sciences, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi. He undertook the course on Plant Conservation Techniques at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew and was trained on Project Cycle management by WWF. Prior to joining WII, he was working as Senior Coordinator Forests Conservation Programme of WWF-India. Assessment of management effectiveness of Protected Areas in Eastern Himalaya and South Western Ghats, Forest Landscape Restoration in Darjeeling Hills, Community Forestry in Western Arunachal Pradesh, Conservation of Rhododendrons in Western Arunachal Pradesh, certification of the wood carving industry and preparation of a conservation action plan for the South Western Ghats landscape, were some of the major initiatives in which Sudipto was involved with. He also authored a paper for the World Bank on biodiversity significance of the North Eastern Region and prepared a strategy paper for biodiversity conservation in Tripura for the Japan Bank for International Co-operation and State Forest Department, Government of Tripura. ‘Ranthambhor revisited’, ‘Forests Fires in India-Lessons from case studies’, ‘Natural Resources Management of the Apatanis’, ‘Relevance of forest certification to wood carving industry of India’ are some of the publications.

Praveen Singh (Program Officer) is a PhD in Environmental History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His work is on ‘Colonial Intervention in Flood Control and Irrigation Development in Eastern India, and its Environmental Impacts’. Before joining WII, Praveen worked in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore on a project titled `Understanding Community-Based Natural Resource Management in South Asia'. His broad area of interest is political economy of development and environmental change.

Monalisa Sen (Program Officer) is a post graduate in Environmental Biology from University of Delhi and is presently pursuing her PhD in Environmental Studies from the same University. Apart from her PhD thesis on ‘ Avifauna and Community Dynamics in the Aravallis’, she has experience of working in the field of  Restoration Ecology, particularly in Asola-Bhatti wildlife sanctuary, Yamuna and Aravalli Biodiversity parks. Her major work responsibilities included extensive field ecological surveys of the Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan regions of the Aravallis; collection and multiplication of native flora of Aravallis; micro-planning of the plantations to be carried out; isolation and mass multiplication of nitrogen fixing bacteria, and helping in the organization of educational camps for school children.  She has also worked on the Flora of Delhi. Prior to joining WII, she has been associated as a Consultant with IUCN- India.

K.M. Jayahari (Program Officer) is a Postgraduate in Zoology and doing his PhD in FRI Deemed University, Dehradun.  He began his conservation career in Kerala Forest Research Institute as a Research Fellow. Apart from his PhD on the “Ecology and Behaviour of Small Mammals in the Western Ghats of Kerala”, he played a key role in the finalization of the State Biodiversity Action Plan (SBSAP) for Kerala, 2005. Before joining WII, he was working as a Project Officer in the Southern Western Ghats Landscape Programme of WWF-India. His major responsibilities were identification of the conservation issues of the Southern Western Ghats, and networking with State Forest Departments, different forest dependant communities, NGOs, research organizations and other conservation stakeholders.

Nitin Chaudhary (Program Associate) has done his M. Phil in Natural Resource Management, from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and his Maters in Environment Management from the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. He has conducted two research dissertations in the area of Climate Change. His key areas of interest are climate change, livelihood and community based natural resources management. He was associated as an intern in People’s Power Campaign with Climate Change and Energy Division, WWF-India, Delhi. At WII, Nitin works on Natural Resources Management and livelihood issues.

Resource Unit for Participatory Forestry (RUPFOR)

Sumana Datta (Program Officer) has seven years of experience in research, designing, implementation, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation of programs and projects in the area of participatory natural resources governance, with special focus on forests. She has worked extensively on institutional aspects related to joint forest management (JFM), NTFP management, and private sector participation, besides participating in training programs on JFM and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Sumana has contributed to national and international conferences and seminars, and has several research publications to her credit. Sumana holds an MPhil degree in Planning and Development from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.