astronomy

Priya Davidar

Priya Davidar is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Priya Davidar rather than just read about it. In short: Priya Davidar is an Indian scientific researcher, conservation biologist, scholar, and author. She retired as a Professor at Pondicherry University and has conducted ecological research in different regions of India.

Key takeaways

Priya Davidar belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Priya Davidar to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Priya Davidar from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Priya Davidar is an Indian scientific researcher, conservation biologist, scholar, and author. She retired as a Professor at Pondicherry University and has conducted ecological research in different regions of India. She has authored a few books, including Whispers from the Wild, co-authored with E. R. C. Davidar and published by Penguin India books. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012. She is actively involved with the conservation of forests and wildlife. She has published about 100 papers in scientific journals.

Early life and family Davidar grew up in Ooty, Tamil Nadu, which is known for its rich variety of fauna and flora. She witnessed the loss of wildlife and nature as she grew up, which motivated her to get into the field of conservation. She said, In a competition for space, other species are rapidly losing out to humans." Davidar's father is a conservationist E.R.C. Davidar and brother Mark Davidar is one of the founders of the Sigur Nature Trust (SNT), in Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu, India which is a 30-acre [CONVERT] wildlife reserve. She married Jean-Philippe Puyravaud who is a research scientist trained in remote sensing. They have collaborated on many research papers.

Education She completed her BSc in 1973 from Madras University and then moved on to get an MSc in 1975 from the same university. In 1979, she was awarded a PhD from Bombay University and later moved on to acquire a S.M. from Harvard University in 1985. For her doctoral thesis, she worked on pollination of the hemi-parasitic mistletoes by nectar feeding birds, under the guidance of the naturalist, Salim Ali, who is known as the "bird man of India".

Work As a conservation biologist, her work mostly revolved around forest ecology, pollination biology and endangered species conservation. She worked for close to three decades in Pondicherry University at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences until she retired. Currently, she is working on a research project where she is "analysing tree distributions at the bio-geographical scale, and the conservation genetics of endangered species such as the Asian elephant and Nilgiri Tahr" She is one of the few women who were field biologists in the 1970s. Though scientists who have only carried out research inside of their laboratories do not adjust well to fieldwork, Allison Snow, who was a fellow postdoc in Panama remarked, "Priya was … unfazed by all the practical difficulties."

Challenges Dr. Davidar has been vocal about the inherent gender bias found in the field of ecology. When asked about how she was treated by her male colleagues, she said, ""They suggested that I get married and stay in the kitchen. I used to take it quite personally and suffered a lot. Now, I realize this only creates needless stress for oneself." She also acknowledges that caste can be another barrier in the field which is mostly dominated by people who belong to the upper caste. She said that though there are no proper statistics, "caste-based nepotism is very much a part of academic recruitment procedure". She also added, "My advice to researchers from disadvantaged backgrounds unwelcome in upper-caste networks is to find collaborators who are supportive to buffer the harshness. Being persistent and carrying on despite difficulties is important. What I found is, time is an important ally that leads to eventual success." According to her, field work can sometimes be challenging to women researchers due to "large gangs of mostly young men from cities, prowling around in the jungles drinking and looking for trouble. Anonymity probably gives them cover for harassment of women." In such cases, however, it is the locals who help them as they tend to feel protective of the women researchers.

Honours and awards In 2009, she was the President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. In 2012, she was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Bibliography Whispers from the Wild Giant Hearts: Travels in the world of Elephants

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Priya Davidar

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Priya Davidar claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Priya Davidar before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Priya Davidar ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Priya Davidar

In research: Priya Davidar appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Priya Davidar in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Priya Davidar is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century Indian biologists, 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers, 20th-century Indian women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Priya Davidar outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Priya Davidar in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Priya Davidar means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Priya Davidar out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Priya Davidar in simple terms?

Why does Priya Davidar matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Priya Davidar?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Priya Davidar.