INSTITUTE:

UNU-IAS

OFFICE:

Jingumae 5-53-70, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925, Japan

E-MAIL:

pandit@unu.edu

PHONE:

+81-3-5467-1212

NATIONALITY:

Nepal

Research Interests

• Biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Climate change adaptation and mitigation
• Community and livelihood conservation
• Community forest management
• Forestry and REDD+
• Land Use Changes
• Remote sensing and GIS
• Tropical forest conservation
• Urban forestry

Education

• Ph.D. in Forestry (Remote Sensing), University of Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan)
• M.Sc. in Environmental Science with Major in Wildlife Management, Central Department of Environmental Science, Tribhuvan University (TU) (Kathmandu, Nepal)
• B.Sc. in Science with Major in Environmental Science, TU Affiliated (Kathmandu Nepal)

Biographical Statement

Dr. Santa Pandit joined UNU-IAS as a Research Assistant for the PANCES project in August 2019. She holds a doctoral degree in Forestry with Remote Sensing technique for biomass estimation and prediction in the tropical forest of Nepal from machine learning algorithms. Her research interests include not only forest inventory and conservation but also the livelihood enhancement of forest dependents. She has been funded by national (Nepal) and international agencies to conduct research as a principal investigator and co-investigator, particularly in the forestry sector and the WASH sector. She was also a University of Tokyo fellowship recipient for her doctoral studies and research.

In addition to her academic career, Dr. Pandit worked at Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN) as an intern and a part-time radio anchor on environmental programmes. She is also one of the founder members of the Nepal-based NGO “Sustainable Utilization of Nepal”. Her interest in remote sensing extends beyond the forestry sector to urban land-use changes and hazard mapping, on which she has conducted case studies in Bangladesh. Her current research related to the PANCES project is focused on predictive land use change for proposed scenarios by PANCES and ecosystem services for Asian countries. Dr. Santa has also contributed to scientific journals based on her research findings.