Tsewang Namgail

Tsewang Namgail joined SLC-IT as its Director in 2013. He has an M.Sc. (zoology honours) from the Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, an M.Phil. In wildlife biology from the University of Tromso, Norway, and a PhD in community ecology from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Subsequently, he worked as a researcher at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in San Francisco and Las Vegas, working on migratory ducks and reptiles in the Mojave Desert. He was also a postdoctoral scholar at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Namgail has supervised several graduate students in the Netherlands as well as in India. He was a visiting scientist at the Wageningen University in 2013-14. He has done pioneering ecological work on several taxa in the Himalayan region, focusing largely on birds and mammals in Ladakh.

He has published over 20 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals. He also has written extensively on nature conservation issues in magazines and newspapers. Currently, he is co-editing a book on migratory birds in the Himalayan region for the Cambridge University Press. He also serves on the editorial board of two Springer journals. Apart from scientific research, he has a keen interest in conserving the natural resources of the Himalayas, and has implemented numerous community-based conservation programs in Ladakh. He has lectured widely in colleges and universities in India, Europe and the United States. At SLC-IT, he provides leadership in developing and implementing science-based conservation for the betterment of snow leopards and their habitats.