Dr. Sunita Chaudhary is an Ecosystem Services Specialist at ICIMOD. She leads scientific research on ecosystems, focusing on the cryosphere, biosphere, and forest-water interfaces. She also facilitates and advocates the integration of action research for policy and practice, to ensure that adaptation policies and measures are grounded in evidence.

Sunita is interested in nature-society interactions and strives to enhance socio-ecological resilience and build capacity for climate adaptation. She also investigates drivers of change, such as climate and land cover change and its impacts on ecosystems and society, especially indigenous people in the region. Coming from one of the indigenous Tharu communities of Nepal, she integrates her personal indigenous knowledge into her research.

Sunita provides advice on environmental affairs to the Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of Nepal. She is also a member of the National Council for Environmental Protection and Climate Change Management and advises the Ministry of Forests and Environment on the implementation of the National Adaptation Plan of Action.

She aims to establish crucial linkages between local grassroots issues and international agendas and global policy formulations. Sunita is a Coordinating Lead for the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment for South Asia, and a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Nexus Assessment. She voluntarily contributes to the Steering Committees of the IUCN Climate Crisis Commission, and the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), hosted at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Prior to her current positions, Sunita worked as a Biodiversity Specialist at ICIMOD, and as Research Officer at Macquarie University in Australia where she also taught undergraduate and graduate classes. She also worked at the Mountain Forum, the Institute of Forestry at Tribhuwan University in Nepal, and the Institute of Ecology in Austria.

Sunita’s contributions and leadership in the field of conservation and sustainable development have been widely recognized. She received the Nepal Bidhya Bhusan ‘B’, and fellowships from the East-West Centre, the Austrian Development Agency, the Winrock International/Ford Foundation, the WWF Prince Bernhard Scholarship, Nuffic, the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), and the Women Merit Scholarship of the Government of Nepal.

Sunita holds a PhD in Geography and Planning (Natural Resources Management) from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She has an MSc in Management of Protected Areas from the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, and a BSc in Forestry from the Institute of Forestry in Pokhara, Nepal. Sunita also holds a Graduate Certificate from the Asia Pacific Leadership Programme of the East West Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA.