Siddharth Unnithan Kumar

After training in mathematics, Siddharth worked closely with geographers, ecologists, anthropologists, and Indigenous scholars. He is drawn to understanding how humans relate with each other and with the more-than-human world, and how concepts and perceptions of the world influence (and, in turn, are influenced by) how one lives and acts in the world.

In February 2024, Siddharth started a three-year postdoctoral research position with the University of Exeter’s RENEW programme, based in Cornwall. He is working with Kevin Gaston and Peter Challenor to develop the uses of mathematics in ecology; in particular, bringing mathematical methods into correspondence with embodied experience of nature through the concept of a ‘personalised ecology’.

Concurrently, he is gathering material for an ‘ecological mathematics’ (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03080188241232766), looking to reorient the use of mathematics in environmental research in a manner which foregrounds human-nature relationships, subjective experience and human difference. These ideas are being developed in collaboration with colleagues at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery.