swap.lawrence [at] gmail.com

I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Life Sciences from Christ University, Bangalore. I then went to work as a research assistant at the Wildlife Conservation Society – India program for three years where I worked on population estimation of large carnivores and their prey using camera trap, line transect and occupancy data. I was also involved in a social survey based study investigating the effects of non-timber forest produce collection on Lion-tailed Macaques across the Western Ghats. In 2018, I joined the Salim Ali Center for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore, to do my Master’s in Ornithology and Conservation Biology. My master’s thesis focused on understanding how exotic timber plantations in the Shola Sky Islands of the Western Ghats impacts the distribution and abundance of endemic birds in the landscape. 

I joined Kavita Isvaran's lab in January 2021 and I am currently involved in a project focused on sexual signalling in the Peninsular Rock Agama.  Broadly my research interests are animal behaviour and its application in conservation. I would like to study and understand how species adapt to anthropogenic pressures in their changing habitat.