Aavika holds a DPhil in Zoology (Doctorate of Philosophy) from the University of Oxford. At the Clegg lab and Coulson lab, she studied the effects of climate change and land-use / land-cover changes on bird communities in the Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh. Before her Doctorate, she was a Junior Project Fellow at Priyadarsanan’s lab, documenting the consumption patterns of edible insects and their diversity across Northeast India. She previously studied the effects of land-use changes on bird communities in Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, as a Research Assistant to Dr Rajkamal Goswami.

Aavika joined the Conservation of community-owned forests and biodiversity in Siang and Dibang Valley project as a Senior Research Fellow in 2024. She has now transitioned to a role of Project Manager under the AMP-Himalaya project. She is primarily interested in long-term conservation of species in community-owned and managed forests, which form the majority of natural habitats in the region. Although largely trained in ecology, intensive field work in northeast India for 8 years now has also taught her ways to integrate traditional ecological knowledge in developing biodiversity monitoring frameworks.

Besides hiking, bird watching, and coding, Aavika also enjoys reading, knitting, embroidery, propagating plants, petting cats, and training for aerial acrobatics.