Assistant Professor, Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), India

Rajeev Raghavan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), India. The Rajeev Lab at KUFOS studies fundamental and applied aspects of tropical aquatic biodiversity, particularly focusing on systematics molecular ecology, extinction risk, evolutionary biogeography and conservation of freshwater fishes. Since 2012, Rajeev has been closely involved with the work of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and is currently the South Asia Coordinator of IUCN’s Freshwater Fish Specialist Group, IUCN’s Freshwater Fish Red List Authority Coordinator for the continents of Asia and Oceania, besides serving as an invited member on several of IUCN’s Interdisciplinary Specialist Groups and Task Forces. From 2013 to 2017, Rajeev was also an invited member on the Global IUCN Red List Committee, which guides and oversees the work and functioning of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, and his expertise and services as a consultant has been used by major international development organizations, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for their projects in South Asia.

Rajeev’s significant scientific contributions include the discovery and description of 11 new species, two unique genera (Aenigmachanna, Sahyadria) and an enigmatic family (Krytoglanidae) of freshwater fish, and a new genus (Eurindicus) and species (Eurindicus bhugarbha) of blind subterranean shrimp from the Western Ghats Hotspot. Rajeev has to his credit more than 140 papers in leading journals in the field of fisheries science and biodiversity conservation and serves on the editorial board of Aquatic Conservation: Marine & Freshwater Ecosystems and Nature Scientific Reports.