Having spent my childhood in Bangalore, I moved to Ponnampet (Coorg, Karnataka) to do my Bachelor's in Forestry. Living in the backyard of the nature in this rainforest clad region of the Western Ghats, I was able to nurture my budding interest in ecology and natural history. I then went on to do a PhD in Stockholm University, working on phylogenentics and biogeography of butterflies. During my stay in Stockholm, I developed a deeper interest in evolutionary biology, which is now the core area of research in our lab. I did my first postdoc in Stockholm University and another at Cambridge University, both on aspects of the evolutionary ecology of butterflies. I joined IISER-TVM in January 2013 and started our research lab - Vanasiri Evolutionary Ecology Lab