Archives at NCBS | Alumni Profile Page 

The Archives at NCBS (https://archives.ncbs.res.in/) is a public centre for the history of science in contemporary India. We are a diverse team, bringing in varied skillsets and experiences, toward the common aim of enabling public, digital access to diverse histories of science from across the sub-continent. 

Various technical teams from across NCBS – civil, architecture, electrical, IT, instrumentation, hospitality – helped conceptualize and build the physical structure of the Archives at NCBS. Over the past six years, the archiving team has been a crew of about 100 students and professionals working for different stints (months to years!) between 2016 and 2024. These include archivists and historians, designers and conservators, journalists and writers, scientists and administrators and librarians, students of sociology, engineering, history, photography, the sciences, marketing, education, and architecture and design. The Archives is governed by a guiding Archives Policy, an internal Archives Review Committee and an external advisory board (for more about this, head to the About Page: https://archives.ncbs.res.in/about). 

If you have been part of the Archives at NCBS in any capacity, and would like to share what you did, or have been up to since, send us an email at archives at ncbs dot res dot in. We'll add your profile here. For a full list of alumni: https://archives.ncbs.res.in/alumni.  

Get to know us and read the profiles of current team members: https://archives.ncbs.res.in/team

Revision Date: Dec 1, 2025

Archive alumni:

Carol Blaizy D'Souza I was an education officer (2024-25) at the Archives working towards developing curricular material using the archival collections and coordinating an education programme focussed on schools. I am a researcher, poet and translator from Bangalore. A collation of my work can be found here, https://linktr.ee/cblaizd

Hari Sridhar I helped manage the oral history programme of the Archives at NCBS (National Centre for Biological Sciences), and am currently involved in two oral history projects examining the contemporary history of conservation in India. Over the last eight years, I have been conducting another long-form interview project with authors of famous scientific papers in Ecology and Evolution (reflectionsonpaperspast.com). My other major research interest is in understanding animal heterospecific sociality, a topic I researched during my PhD and post-doctoral years at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and which I continue to stay in touch with through collaborative projects. I also teach occasionally at the Azim Premji University and have been an editor of Current Conservation in the past.

Janaky Sunil I worked (2025) as a subject matter expert, creating metadata in physics and space science collections at the archives. Previously, I have worked as a researcher of material physics in Carnegie Institution of Science, IIT Madras, and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, mostly looking at phase transitions of materials under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. I occasionally work as a freelance science writer as well.

Preeti Shree Venkatram I was a Researcher-Subject Expert- Archives of Ecology at the Archives at NCBS (2023-2025), primarily associated with the Making of Indian Conservation project. Previously, I have worked on research projects at Azim Premji University (APU), Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and Centre for Policy Research (CPR)-Namati Environmental Justice Programme. These have dealt with a vast range of topics associated with the environment. To name a few- Krishnarajasagar Project under the Mysore Presidency, climate change, the Smart Cities Mission, environmental compliance, land-use change conflicts and coastal regulation in India. I have a Master's degree in Environment and Development and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology.

Samyamee Sreevathsa I worked part-time at the Archives at NCBS (2024-2025), where I helped manage and process Oral History Interviews. Before this, I worked on developing the sensitivity framework for the same. My academic interests lie in behavioural and community ecology, and I'm also working on a project that aims to understand how vertebrate communities in Bangalore and Delhi utilise fruiting and flowering trees.