Eapsa Berry is a Fellow in Residence at ATREE. She is a botanist and evolutionary biologist by academic training and work. She has over three years of experience in formal postdoctoral research and a couple of years of teaching experience. Broadly her areas of interest and preferred methods of study consist of plant morphology, systematics, phylogenetic comparative methods, and ecology in functional traits. Her current research interest pertains to biodiversity and endemism in Himalaya.

An important part of Eapsa’s childhood was spent among colours and flowers and in the company of Darjeeling Himalaya. She learnt her first life lessons in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling and St Thomas’ Church School, Howrah, and her first serious lessons of plant life in Presidency College, Kolkata. She cherishes the memories of her award on the theme of ‘Save Nature’ by Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, Darjeeling.

For her PhD from the Department of Botany, Delhi University, she worked in the Sikkim Himalaya (on Rhododendron) and in the tropical arid vegetations of Sariska (on Justicia adhatoda). Her postdoctoral experience included work in National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico (on metabolic scaling in plants), and in the Institution of Eminence at Delhi University (endemism in Himalaya).

She has loving memories of her teaching stints in Department of Botany, Delhi University and Maitreyi College, DU. She loves to prepare drawings and illustrations for her research and teaching.