<ref>Ambika Kamath (born 1989) is a behavioral ecologist and feminist, broadly interested in the consequences of individual variation in behavior for the ecological and evolutionary trajectories of populations and species. With experience studying vertebrates, invertebrates, and even plants, she is building a research program studying individual behavioral ecology in a variety of organisms, using field-based techniques, conceptual inquiry, and mathematical modeling approaches to tackle specific questions tailored to each organism’s unique natural history.
Kamath was born in New Delhi, she studied in Richi Valley School an Indian boarding school located in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. She did her BA, Biology in Amherst College and later moved on to gradate schooling at Harvard University. Kamath is a Miller postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, working with Damian Elias in the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management. She did her Ph.D. with Jonathan Losos, in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. She is on the Executive Board of UAW Local 5810, the union of postdocs and academic researchers at UC. She will be starting as faculty in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Colorado Boulder in the Fall of 2021.
Growing up her mother was an architect, who managed to evolve in a field that is dominated by males. Kamath was homeschool and was intrigued by math as it was extremely logical. Later, in highschool she realized that biology was similar and thus sparked an interest in this field. Her most famous study were with Anolis lizards. Growing up she had to experience various forms of gender inequality however she was able to power through them and become an extremely successful women of color. Kamath faced mental health challenges that were exacerbated by departmental and institutional culture, and by the capitalist culture of academia itself. She had a difficult time during her time at Harvard, in Losos lab, as it was mainly white males. The culture made her feel hostile, and was scared to ask questions. In addition, the lab faced challenges surrounding creating a welcoming environment for people from different backgrounds. In her second year of Ph.D., she started to feel like she wasn’t getting enough guidance. Her mentor was traveling a lot that semester, which probably contributed to it, and she had my qualifying exams coming up. However she was not afraid to have a stern conversation in which she told him she needs more help from him. This helped her evolve and grow, she learnt how to have difficult conversations in a healthy and respectful way. However she was able to have open conversations which helped her build a more respectful relation with her peers and lab instructors, she was also able to educate them on different cultures and thus pave a more open path for future generations of diverse populations to come. Kamath learned that an environment in which people feel safety, connection, and agency is an environment in which they can bring forth their most creative selves. Kamath enjoys writing about social justice, the scientific process, feelings, mental health and organizations. She is currently working on a memoir–about science, trauma, healing, and solidarity
Below are links of her work: https://ambikamath.com/ https://www.anoleannals.org/author/ambikamath/