Biography
S. Ravi Rajan is Provost of College Eight and a tenured faculty member of the Department of Environmental Studies at University of California Santa Cruz. He earned a BA in Mathematics and MA in Philosophy at the University of Delhi, and a D Phil in Environmental History and Science and Technology Studies, at the University of Oxford. He also completed Postdoctoral Studies in Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, in Global Environmental Politics at Cornell University, and on Science, Technology, and the Global Environment, at the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin.
Rajan's research spans three arenas: a) environmental history and values; b) risk and disaster management; and c) environmental governance and entrepreneurship. Rajan’s work in each of these fields is driven by an interest in reflexive studies of institutions and expertise. His methodology is pragmatic and interdisciplinary, and aims to be policy relevant.
In addition to several research papers and edited anthologies, Rajan is author of Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Ecodevelopment, 1800 - 1950 (Oxford University Press 2006 hardback, and Orient Longman 2007 paperback), and Sustenance, Security, and Suffrage: A theory of Environmental Human Rights (under revision). He is currently at work on three new single authored books – on the political ecology of environmental risks; on the “Greening” of Industry in the Silicon Valley; and on Science Advocacy and Environmental Policy making in India.
Rajan serves on the editorial board of the journal Environmental Justice. He has also served on the editorial board of the journal, Environment and History; as Program Chair for the Annual meeting of of the American Society for Environmental History in 2003, and on various committees of that association; as a manuscript referee for several leading academic journals and presses; and as a referee for renowned research agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the United Kingdom.
Rajan serves a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Silicon Valley, the world’s largest not for profit organization for entrepreneurs. His public service includes the Presidency of the Board of Directors of Pesticide Action Network, North America (PANNA); Board service for the International Media Project, which produces the weekly radio news program, Making Contact; and membership of the city of Santa Cruz’s Green Building Committee. He co-founded the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, a documentation and information center on the gas disaster, in 1985, and served on the core group of the Indian environmental action group, Kalpavriksh, during the 1980s. In addition to his scholarly work, Rajan also writes periodic essays in the popular news media.
Rajan is married to Priya Rao, a software engineer, and they have three children - one human and two feline.
