Sathyabhama Das Biju
Amphibian Biologist
S. D. Biju (Sathyabhama Das Biju) is Professor at Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, India and currently in Harvard University as Radcliffe Fellow at Radcliffe Institute of Advance Studies. He is also an associate of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. At the University of Delhi, he had served as Dean, Faculty of Science, and Chair (Head), Department of Environmental Studies.
Biju’s research focuses on amphibian systematics, evolution, behavior, and biogeography and contributes to conservation through discovery and documentation of species. For over 30 years, Biju has been conducting research and photographing amphibians in Asian forests with the aim of documenting their diversity, life, and behavior. Biju has made an indelible mark on the study of amphibians. A taxonomist par excellence, he is the only Indian herpetologist to describe 116 new amphibian taxa (2 families, 10 genera, 106 species) — nearly 25% of the country’s diversity, published in top-tier journals such as Nature.
Biju earned his first PhD in Botany from University of Calicut, India, and contributed to knowledge on plants through several scientific publications and books. He obtained his second PhD in animal science from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium and shifted his focus to amphibians. His three decades of work thereon has attracted global attention to amphibians in South Asia through an upsurge in scientific knowledge and discovery of over a hundred new species, including the famed Indian Purple Frog. He has published over 100 articles in top scientific journals like Nature, Science and PNAS. His findings have widely appeared in popular press like BBC, National Geographic, CNN, Times, Forbes, The Economist, New York Times and The Guardian, to name a few. Biju’s contributions have received prestigious recognitions such as the IUCN/ASG SABIN award 2008 and Indian State Government’s highest civilian award Kerala Sree 2022. He was elected to the Indian National Science Academy in 2023.
- Curriculum Vitae
- INTERVIEW: Journey of S.D. Biju: a pathfinder (Mathrubhumi, India)
- NEWS: India’s maverick ‘frog man’ (BBC); Who will fight for the frogs? (Harvard Gazette)
- COVER STOTY: Frog hunters of the Western Ghats (The Economist)
Contact (Present): Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street,
Cambridge 02138, MA, USA
Email: [email protected] | [email protected]
