Ankita is a third-year PhD student from India. She’s studying the distribution of waterbirds in unprotected agricultural wetlands in Gujarat, India, specifically, the role of hydroperiod and connectivity with irrigation canals in determining the use of agricultural wetlands by waterbirds. 

 

Ankita started off as a software engineer conducting analytics and optimization research and dabbled in bioinformatics research, following which she graduated from University of East Anglia with a Masters in Applied Ecology. 

 

Prior to coming to Duke, she worked on securing elephant corridors in India through different land-securement strategies including community-led conservation, land purchase, legal securement etc.