Date: March 10, 2015, 7:30 pm
Location: The Englert Theater

Shiva Vandana is the 2015 Distinguished Lecturer.

Born on November 5, 1952 in the verdant valley of Dehradun, to a father who was the conservator of Forests and a farmer mother with a deep love for nature, Vandana Shiva received her first lessons on environment protection in the lap of Himalayas. A student of St. Mary’s School in Nainital and later of Convent of Jesus and Mary, Dehradun, Vandana Shiva had always aspired to be a scientist since childhood. But nuclear physics soon raised questions in her mind regarding its Impact on Life and the environment. And thus began Vandana Shiva’s passionate affair with the environment. 

Dr. Vandana Shiva is trained as a physicist and did her PhD. on the subject “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” from the University of Western Ontario. She later shifted to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.

In 1982, she founded an independent institute, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native see, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. In 2004 she started Bija Vidyapeeth, an international college for sustainable living in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K.

Dr. Shiva has contributed in fundamental ways to changing the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food. Her books, The Violence of Green Revolution and Monocultures of the Mind have become basic challenges to the dominant paradigm of non-sustainable, reductionist Green Revolution Agriculture. Through her books Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest, Water Wars, Dr. Shiva has made visible the social, economic and ecological costs of corporate led globalization.  Her most recent book, Making Peace with the Earth, Shiva demolishes the myths propagated by corporate globalization in its pursuit of profit and power and shows its devastating environmental impact.