Himalayan Centre for Environmental Humanities
Coordinating Committee:
Jelle J.P. Wouters, (Chairperson)
Programme Leader of BA Political Science and Sociology
Associate Professor
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Dr. Jelle JP Wouters is a social anthropologist and teaches in the Department of Social Sciences at Royal Thimphu College (RTC), Bhutan. He holds an M.Phil. (Distinction) in social anthropology from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, where he was also a Wenner-Gren grantee. Prior to joining RTC in 2015, he taught at Sikkim Central University, India, and was visiting faculty at Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, Germany, under the “Excellence Initiative” of the German Research Foundation. He is the author of In the shadows of Naga Insurgency (OUP 2018) and Nagas as a society Against voting and other Essay (Highlander Books 2019) and the co-editor of Nagas in the 21st Century (Highlander Books 2017) and Democracy in Nagaland: Tribes, Traditions, and Tensions (Highlander Books 2018).
Shiva Raj Bhattarai
Dean, Academic Affairs
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Dr. Shivaraj Bhattarai heads the Academic Affairs of the college. Prior to joining RTC in 2008 as the Founding Dean, he was the Dean of Academic Affairs at Sherubtse College, the lone premier university college in Bhutan till recent times. He has an MSC in Bio-Science and a Ph.D. in Limnology (freshwater ecology). With several years of teaching, research, and administrative experience, he is involved in the administration and management of the academics of the college. A member of the Academic Board of the Royal University of Bhutan, he is responsible for the execution of existing academic programs and for the general academic advancement of the college. For his long and dedicated public service, he received the prestigious Life Time Service Award (Gold) from His Majesty the King in 2013. His other interests include traveling, trekking, reading, and playing indoor games. He is a keen user of social media and blogs at http://shiva-bhattarai.blogspot.com
Samir Patel
Dean, Development and External Relation
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Dr. Samir Patel is an Indian-born US national from California, USA. He double-majored in Integrated Sciences & Biology as an undergraduate student at Northwestern University, USA, after completing an undergraduate honors project. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University, USA, in Biological Sciences (Cell Biology/Biochemistry). After three additional years of postdoctoral research at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, he came to Bhutan in 2008 to serve as a Lecturer, first in Life Sciences at Sherubtse College in Eastern Bhutan, then at Royal Thimphu College in Thimphu, Bhutan since 2012 as an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies. He has been serving as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at RTC since 2013. He currently also advises the IT support department and serves as the Interim Dean for the Development and External Relations Department.
Kinley Dorji
Programme Leader of BSc Environmental Management
Lecturer
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Mr. Kinley Dorji has been teaching in the Environmental Management Programme at Royal Thimphu College for the last three years. He has a Master’s of Science in Environmental Management with a specialization in Climate Change and Natural Resources Management from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, under the SAARC scholarship. He has also conducted research in the field of climate change and resources management focusing on water and forest resources. He fancies and invests a lot of his time in studying Buddhism, Economics, and Data Science. Recently, in addition to what he has been studying, his encounter with the academicians studying Environmental Humanities has sparked in him, ardent interest to study it. He has been investing a substantial amount of time and effort to understand the world - the world he believes shared by countless beings - through the multitude of lenses beyond the ecological sciences
Leishipem Khamrang
Department of Social Science
Associate Lecturer
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Dr. Leishipem Khamrang is a human geographer currently teaching at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan. He holds a PhD in geography from the University of Mumbai. His works and research interests center on development studies, quality of life, population and environment, environmental humanities, and urban studies. Some of his recent works are published in the SAGE journal of South Asia Research, Willey Journal of Gender, Work and Organization, OUP edited book (forth coming), to mention a few. Taking ardent interest in urban studies, he has done a considerable work on the growth and development of Thimphu city. Currently he is writing a book chapter for Routledge Handbook of Asian Cities.
Tashi Choden
Department of Social Science
Associate Lecturer
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Ms.Tashi Choden is currently serving as an associate lecturer at Royal Thimphu College (RTC) in the Anthropology programme. She has an MA in Anthropology from Savitribai Phule Pune University. She will soon start working for the “EATWELL: A Comparative Material-Semiotic Ethnography of Food Systems and More-than-Human Health in Bhutan” research project funded by the research council of Norway (NFR) as a key research person from RTC. The project will investigate food’s diverse aspects throughout its production, distribution, preparation, and consumption and how these affect nutrient intake and co-shape more-than-human health through biosocial entanglements. Tashi is also interested in research fields such as medical anthropology and environmental humanities.