Dr. Silanjan Bhattacharyya
Born in1961 at Kolkata
Present positions :
 Associate Professor, Department of Zoology, W.B.S.U.
 Member of the research project evaluation committee, West Bengal
Biodiversity Board
 Member, Wildlife Advisory Board, Gov. of West Bengal
 Ecologist to the Eco-sensitive zone committees of sanctuaries in
North and South 24-Parganas, West Bengal
Educational :
 Masters in Zoology from Calcutta University (1986)
 PhD from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1993)
Teaching experiences :
 19 years of teaching experience at UG and PG levels
Research Background:
 PhD thesis based on extensive field works and theoretical explorations
in the field of ecology, human ecology and evolution under
supervision of Prof. Madhav Gadgil at Centre for Ecological Sciences
of IISc, Bangalore.
 Visiting scholar to Morrison Institute of Population Studies of
Stanford University : worked on population genetics and cultural
evolution
 Research Associate at Institut Français : worked on forest ecology of
Western Ghats
 Consultant to WWF-India, Eastern Region : undertook projects
relating man-wildlife conflicts in Terai forests of North Bengal
 Research coordinator of an awareness film on Indian Biodiversity and
traditional knowledge (the film `Under this Sun’ got a President’s best
Award)
Fields of research interests :
 Gene-culture evolutionary dynamics in human behaviour
 Impacts of human resource use and culture on biodiversity, ecology
and wildlife
 Restoration ecology
 Crow behaviours in relation to cognition and cultural capacities
Others interests and involvements:
 Documentation and conservation of biodiversity and related
traditional knowledge in the form of People’s Biodiversity Register
 Popular Science writing in West Bengal’s leading newspapers and
magazines
Important Publications :
 Demographic history of India and mtDNA -sequence diversity; Am. J.
Hum. Genet., 56:979-992,1995, (with L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and other
coauthors)
 Caste barrier to reproductive interactions in Indian rural populations;
Working paper series No. 0056, Stanford University, 1994
 Sunderban: dying a slow death, The Hindu survey of the environment
’98, 1998
 Contributor to a chapter of the WORLD RESOURCES 2000-2001, a
report published by UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and World Resources
Institute
 Environmental education : becoming a cliché?, in Communicating
Green, (eds) S. Bhattacharyya and S. Sanyal, published by Khetro and
Goethe Institut, Max Muller Bhavan, Kolkata, 2007
 Banglar Maach : a bengali field manual on fishes, WBBB, Kolkata
 Graam Banglar Bonno Stanyopayee Jontu : a bengali field manual on
mammals, WBBB, Kolkata, 2013 2nd ed.
 Editor of the series of field manuals published by WBBB, Kolkata
 Wild Biodiversity Resource Use by Forest-Fringe People in South
Western West Bengal, India. NeBio. Vol. 5, No. 1, Feb 2014, 61-65
 Caching food, pilferage and deceiving by common crows (Corvus
splendens) 2012. Vol. 103 No.3 pp 165-7