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Degree: Biology ’27
Project Team: Using Drones to Monitor the Health of Endangered Elephants (2024-2025)
I’ve been fascinated by the natural world ever since I was a child. Growing up in Mumbai, India, I tried to spend as much time as I could outdoors, even taking a position as a naturalist in India’s Kanha National Park.
My curiosity and interest in fieldwork led me across different landscapes in India, but I focused particularly on understanding Mumbai’s urban leopards that live in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. I was part of a team trying to understand how these elusive felines have adapted to living in a protected area surrounded by a concrete jungle, and how their co-existence in an urban landscape is possible.
In addition to learning about the natural world academically, I was constantly engaged in hands-on work with animals. This included actively rescuing and fostering wildlife, such as star tortoises that were victims of illegal wildlife trafficking, which deepened my understanding of human-wildlife conflict.
When I got to Duke, I knew I wanted to pursue a career that deepened my knowledge of the natural world. As a biology major, I aim to learn as much about wildlife and ecology as I can, including how to solve complex issues with modern conservation technology. Through Bass Connections, I’m now involved with a team that has integrated existing conservation methods with new forms of conservation technology, including using drones to assess elephant health and body condition.
This team brings together engineers, ecologists, statisticians and computer scientists to make advancements in the field of wildlife conservation. We work together to develop decolonized research practices and consider the ethical implications of working in international settings. Our team is organized into three subteams – the first is focusing on developing drone technology and analysis tools; the second is evaluating wild and orphan elephants’ movement using radio collar data (data source: Dr. Daniella Chusyd, Indiana University); and the third is analyzing elephants’ body condition through camera trap data. Together, the team hopes to aid elephant conservation efforts by demonstrating how new technologies can complement more standard conservation methods in the field.
Through our team, I was able to participate in international fieldwork and gain experience in Zambia collecting data for our project. Our team collaborates with Game Rangers International (GRI), a wildlife non-profit conservation organization based in Zambia, and Dr. Chusyd, an elephant specialist and assistant professor at Indiana University.
GRI empowers rangers and local communities to save Zambia's wildlife and wild spaces. It embraces a holistic approach to conservation, empowering rangers across three core thematic areas: resource protection, community outreach and wildlife rescue. Within the Wildlife Rescue Programme, GRI rescues, rehabilitates and releases orphaned elephants back into the wild. Dr. Chusyd works in tandem with GRI, also serving on their advisory board, and leads a long-term study to investigate the implications of extreme stress on the health, behavior and aging of elephants in Kafue National Park.
While conducting fieldwork in Zambia, we stayed at GRI’s Kafue Release Facility in Kafue National Park. Our research at the Release Facility involved collecting data on orphaned elephants rescued by GRI. I worked with doctoral student Halina Malinowski (University Program in Ecology) and master’s student Emily Siegel (Master of Environmental Management) to collect data. We also set up camera traps in elephant hotspots throughout the national park with the guidance of Dr. Chusyd and her team (Kasi Kalande and Lanos Chisaka). Our elephant hotspots were determined from elephant GPS data collected by Dr. Chusyd and her team on 10 elephants they radio-collared in Kafue National Park.
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Our team accompanied the elephant keepers while they were out with the elephants in the mornings and evenings and took images to evaluate their body condition. We also used a drone to capture footage of the orphan and orphan-released elephants in and around the “boma” (i.e., protective enclosure). This serves as a non-invasive method to monitor and evaluate the body condition and behavior of elephants. Using this cost-effective and efficient strategy, we can also understand elephants’ behavioral response to drones.
One of my favorite aspects of this trip included my interactions with the GRI elephant keepers and staff. They were kind, passionate and hardworking. Just as we were keen to learn about elephant behavior and Zambian culture from them, they were keen to learn about conservation technology from us.
I also got the chance to see several other species of African wildlife, including the sable antelope, greater kudu, waterbuck, zebras and multiple herds of African savannah elephants. Nights were accompanied by elephants trumpeting beside our camp coupled with the laughing calls of the spotted hyena.
Back at Duke, our Bass Connections team has been working on processing camera trap footage collected from our fieldwork in Kafue. We identify individual species that our camera traps captured, including elephant herds, leopards, impala and hyenas, among other species. We also identify and categorize elephants into different herds and give each individual a unique code based on their ear pattern. These elephants are then evaluated based on their body condition, which will help us to understand the challenges that they may face and the kinds of conservation strategies we can implement in a rapidly changing environment.
Through writing papers and reflections on our work and participating in workshops, I developed skills necessary to contribute to this important field. I am thankful for our team leaders (Dr. Nicolette Cagle, Dr. David Johnston, and Halina Malinowski), and I’m also thankful to Libby White, a research technician in the Marine Robots & Remote Sensing Lab, who has been invaluable to our team meetings, particularly with respect to her knowledge of camera trap data and conducting statistical analysis using R.
Our team also had guest speakers, including Britius Munkombwe, manager of the Kafue Release Facility, who was kind enough to spend time with our team talking about his work and sharing his experience supporting community outreach programs. I was inspired by his weekly radio conservation program which reaches thousands of people.
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My work on this team has been incredibly helpful for my academic and personal development. I was able to work with people from different academic backgrounds and see how different fields contribute to solving environmental problems through collaboration. One of the biggest takeaways was learning how to collaborate with people at varying levels of expertise – from undergraduates like me, to doctoral students, faculty members and our partners at GRI. Everyone brought unique perspectives and strengths, and I believe we were pushed out of our comfort zones to learn new things while also being encouraged to leverage our unique strengths and interests.
June 2025