Qualifications: M.Sc.Wildlife Science, Amity University, Noida (2019- 2021)

B.Sc. Agriculture Science, Padmabhushan Vasant Dada Patil College of Agriculture, Pune (2015-2019)

Email: teerthala@dakshin.org

Profile: Meghana has always been fascinated by marine wildlife and during her master’s program, she got the opportunity to learn more about this field and various dimensions of marine conservation. For this reason, she has done all her academic projects related to marine wildlife. For her master’s dissertation titled  “Evaluating the Anthropogenic Factors Influencing the Abundance of Crustaceans and Molluscs in a Sandy beach Ecosystem”, she worked on the sandy beach ecosystem. During the dissertation, she got an opportunity to interact with small-scale fishers in the Udupi district of Karnataka. During her internship with Dusty Foot Production, she worked on secondary research for the UNDP-GCF communication project titled “Enhancing Climate Resilience of India’s Coastal Communities in Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh” and worked on the Management of the database. This helped her to understand the vulnerability of coastal communities and the importance of social science in the field of conservation.

She joined Dakshin Foundation in December 2021 and started working as a Programme Assistant with the Sustainable Fisheries Programme on a project that aims to understand the ecological, economic and social impacts of reduction fisheries in India. Her role majorly involves the collection of biological and fisheries data and conducting interviews with fishers and other key stakeholders in Mangalore, Karnataka.