Madhav Gadgil, M.Sc. (Bombay 1965), Ph.D. (Harvard 1969) has been an IBM Fellow and a Lecturer in Biology at Harvard University, a Visiting Professor at Stanford and a Distinguished Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1973 he has worked at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore where he is now a Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences established through his initiative in 1983.

His research interests include population biology, conservation biology, human ecology and ecological history. He has published over 170 research papers (two of them recognized as Citation Classics) and four books, "This Fissured Land" and "Ecology and Equity", "Diversity : The cornerstone of life" and "Nurturing Biodiversity: An Indian Agenda". He writes regularly for popular media in English and Indian languages, and has been working with people's science movements and environmental NGOs.

He is active in a network of educational institutions working towards monitoring the biodiversity of Western Ghats, and in a countrywide effort of voluntary agencies to prepare "Peoples's Biodiversity Registers". He has been a member of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India (1986-90) and a Vice President of the Scientific Advisory Body to the Convention on Biological Diversity (1995). He currently chairs the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of Global Environment Facility.

He received the National Environmental Fellowship in recognition of his field research on the people-environment relationship on the hill chain of Western Ghats , where he has been involved in the establishment of India's first biosphere reserve.

He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Third World Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the British Ecological Society. A recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Vikram Sarabhai and Iswarchandra Vidyasagar awards, he was conferred the Rajyotsava award by the Government of Karnataka and Padmashri by the President of India.