Gyanpriya Maharaj, senior lecturer and director at the Center for the Study of Biological Diversity at the University of Guyana, is an entomologist and ethologist who works in the areas of biodiversity education and policy development. Her research examines the impact of natural and anthropogenic factors, including climate change, habitat type, landscape modification, and pollution, on the diversity, ecology, and behavior of tropical animals. She is passionate about capacity building through teaching, research, and collaboration, and her work engages local and international communities on the challenges, opportunities, and considerations for biodiversity monitoring and research from a Global South perspective.
Her Climate Imagination Mini-Fellowship project will take place at the Sophia Point Rainforest Research Centre in Guyana, located near the confluence of the Essequibo, Mazaruni, and Cuyuni Rivers. Working with young people from local primary school environmental and science clubs, as well as students from Indigenous communities near Sophia Point, she will lead a one-day exercise, “Forest Detectives: Using Terrestrial Bioindicators to Find Climate Clues in Nature.” This project combines classroom lessons with field observations and will be coordinated by students and faculty from the University of Guyana. The exercise will provide participants with experience through the process of scientific inquiry and bolster their ecological literacy by illustrating how lichens, butterflies, ants, and frogs tell the tale of climate change. Students will integrate their own local and indigenous knowledge with scientific observations to better understand the interconnectedness of climate and ecology.