Highest Science Honor to Kurseong's Dr Eklabya Sharma

VOICE OF SIKKIM

Gangtok : Dr Eklabya Sharma, a resident of St. Mary’s Hill in Kurseong of Darjeeling District has been elected as Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy which is the highest recognition for any scientist in India. His selection has been confirmed by the Indian National Science Academy after its general assembly on the 4th October 2013. Dr Sharma, son of Mr Indra Prasad Sharma and Mrs Hem Kumari Sharma of St. Mary’s Hill in Kurseong, pursued his schooling from St. Alphonsus School in Kurseong, Pre-University from St. Joseph’s College in Darjeeling, and BSc (Honors), MSc (Botany) and PhD (Ecology) from the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi of Uttar Pradesh. Dr Sharma is currently the Director of Programmes at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) an inter-governmental organization of eight countries including India at its headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal. 

Dr Sharma holds a senior management position in ICIMOD while representing India. Dr Sharma was also the founder Scientist In-charge of the Sikkim Center of the G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development. Dr Sharma has been a member of high powered committees in India and now represents his institution in many top bodies globally including the ‘Mountain Partnership’ whose Secretariat is at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome; UN Inter Governmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Bonn, Germany; UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada; and Swiss National Science Foundation in Bern of Switzerland. Dr Sharma has received many national and international awards such as the Young Scientist Award of the Indian National Science Academy in 1988; Eminent Scientist Award (Vishist Vigyanik Puraskar) from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India in 1995; and Honorable Mention Paper Award from the Soil and Water Conservation Society, USA in 1999. 

He was elected Fellow of the National Institute of Ecology (FNIE), New Delhi, India, in 1994 and Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc), India, in 1999. He was also the recipient of the Social Status Award on ‘Environment’ conferred in 2004 by the Government of Sikkim. He has more than 160 publications to his credit published in peer-reviewed international journals including 15 books. He was the Chief Editor of the Journal of Hill Research published in Sikkim from 1992 to 1996 and was the Regional Editor for Asia of the journal Mountain Research and Development between 2002 and 2010, and now serves on the international editorial board of this journal. He has supervised seven Ph.D. theses on ecology, primarily dealing with natural resource management of the eastern Himalayas to the students mostly coming from North East India. Dr . Sharma is presently heading the Mountain Institute Trust of India Chapter whose Head Quarter in USA. 

Over the past 30 years Dr Sharma has pioneered research on mountain ecology. He contributed to ecosystem management; transboundary biodiversity landscape development; biodiversity conservation and ecotourism; biogeochemical cycling in ecosystems focusing on nitrogen fixation and phosphorus solubilization; watershed management including land-use/cover change; carbon dynamics, climate change and adaptations. He developed transboundary landscape management approaches now applied by six countries in the Himalayas. Dr Sharma’s wife Mrs Rita Sharma is also a PhD degree holder and she is the Senior Fellow of The Mountain Institute. His son Tanuj is studying in the final year of Engineering in ‘Electrical and Electronics’ at the McGill University in Canada and daughter Yashasvi is studying in Year 5 at The British School in Kathmandu, Nepal.