Hi, I’m Meera. Currently, I teach college-level biology and environmental science courses as an adjunct instructor at various institutions in the Seattle area. I work with the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at UW to support our amazing scholars and study how partnering with undergraduate equity and inclusion programs affects culture change in conservation organizations. And I am a managing trustee and program officer for the Charlotte Martin Foundation.

I completed my Ph.D in 2021 in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington in the Hille Ris Lambers lab. Scientifically, my biggest interests are species interactions, especially the myriad relationships between plants and invertebrates. I think about how these connections are shaped by climate and by human activities, as well as how they shape ecological responses to global change. I am also very interested in how people form personal relationships with the natural world, and in making science and conservation more just and equitable spaces.

Being a scientist is a relatively new identity for me. In some former lives, I have been a freelance science writer, an English textbook editor, a middle school humanities teacher, and a waitress at a karaoke bar in Singapore (which makes more sense once you know that’s where I’m from). I now live, work, hike, hug my cat, and make mistakes in Seattle, on the traditional lands of the Duwamish people, with my partner Ross.

If you would like, you can read a little book I wrote a long time ago, when I was first starting to fall in love with living things.