S. D. Biju (Sathyabhama Das Biju)
S. D. Biju (Sathyabhama Das Biju) is a senior professor at Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, India. He is also an associate of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Biju’s research focuses on amphibian systematics, evolution, behavior, and biogeography and contributes to conservation through discovery and documentation of species.
At Radcliffe, Biju is expediting efforts to outpace nameless extinctions in India’s amphibian hotspots. He will use voluminous data from his past research to better understand diversity and distribution patterns and to identify key biodiversity areas for conservation prioritization. He will also continue his work on a comprehensive reference book on amphibians of India.
Biju earned his first PhD, in botany, from the University of Calicut and contributed to knowledge on plants through several scientific publications and books. He obtained his second PhD, in animal science, from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and shifted his focus to amphibians. In his three decades of work thereon, he has attracted global attention to amphibians in South Asia through an upsurge in scientific knowledge and discovery of more than a hundred new species, including the famed Indian purple frog. He has published over 100 articles in such scientific journals as Nature, PNAS, and Science, and his findings have widely appeared in the popular press. Biju’s contributions have been recognized with the 2008 Sabin Award for Amphibian Conservation and an inaugural Kerala Sree award, in 2022. He was elected to the Indian National Science Academy in 2023.
Who Will Fight for the Frogs? (Harvard Gazette, 10/23/23)
A Conversation with Amphibian Biologist and Photographer, S.D. Biju (Harvard Museums of Science & Culture)
