Writer in Residence Hari Sridhar at the Zukunftskolleg

We welcome Hari Sridhar at the Zukunftskolleg. He has started his Senior Fellowship as Writer in Residence at the Zukunftskolleg – first digitally and in 2021 on campus.

Hari is an independent researcher (and an honorary fellow of the Archives at NCBS) based in Bangalore, India, who is interested in documenting and interpreting the making of ecological knowledge and its intersection with conservation practice. During his PhD and initial post-doctoral years at the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) Hari’s research was aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of heterospecific sociality in animal communities, an interest that he continues to pursue independently and through collaborative projects.

Since June 2016, he has revisited 170+ landmark papers in ecology and evolution, through interviews with their lead authors, to find out about the making of the paper, its impact on the field and the author’s career, and the author’s current reflections on the paper’s results and interpretations.

“During my fellowship at the Zukunftskolleg, I would like to: 1. work on a book manuscript based on interview material (commissioned by Cambridge University Press); 2. write an essay about the role of chance events and natural history in the making of ecological knowledge; and 3. conceptualise and execute a digital exhibition of stories behind landmark scientific papers”, states Hari.

We are looking forward to exciting discussions and collaboration with Hari Sridhar.