Anchal Padukone

Anchal graduated from Princeton in 2016 with a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and a Global Health and Health Policy certificate. Her interests in the health of people, animals, and the environment were fueled by her first visit to the Mpala Research Centre in 2014, where she worked on a Nature Conservancy-funded rangeland rehabilitation and animal health project. She spent half of 2015 at Smithsonian field stations in Panama, conducting independent research on tropical ecosystems. This led up to her senior thesis, which examined the microenvironmental factors determining the distribution of an insect vector of Chagas disease. As an intern at the Indian Institute of Health Management, she researched the long-term sustainability of Human Milk Banks in Rajasthan and helped conduct community surveys to assess the impact of nutritional interventions. At Princeton, she was an editor for the Public Health Review, worked with university administration to improve mental health policies through the Mental Health Initiative, and proposed and led a civic engagement trip through Princeton’s alternative break program. Anchal looks forward to working at the intersections of science, conservation practice and outreach at Mpala this year, and to learning more about the savanna ecosystem, its wildlife and its people.