Member

Kalpana Devkota is a member of the Executive Council of Gandaki Province, Academy of Science and Technology (GPAST), an autonomous government institution working in Science, technology, and innovation.

She has experience in managing various international projects funded by a variety of donors including USAID, DFID, DANIDA, FINLAND, SDC, and SIDA in Nepal. She has over 18 years of experience in managing development and research projects in a variety of sectors including natural resources management sectors. She started her career from CARE international Nepal. Her positions have included working with Multi stakeholder Forestry Program; Service Support Unit (MSFP-SSU), as the program coordinator, working as a forestry consultant with Swiss Development Cooperation in Nepal, and working as a project manager at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology. Later, she served as Team Leader at OXFAM GB. She now works as a freelancer in various fields, such as climate resilience, project/program evaluation, political economy analysis (PEA), disaster risk management, land use management, GESI, governance, sustainable livelihood and forest/natural resources management. Her expertise includes guiding MSc. and PhD. students for writing their research proposals and theses in Nepal.

In 2011, Dr. Devkota completed her PhD in social ecology from Alpen- Adria, University of Klagenfurt, Austria under an OEAD scholarship, and an MSc in mountain forestry from University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, BOKU, Vienna, Austria in 2006 under an Afro-Asian Institute (AAI) scholarship, Austria. She received a Rotary Japan scholarship to study leadership and organic farming in Japan for a year. In 2017, she was awarded the Nepali Bidya Bhusan 'Ka' Medal honoring the President of Nepal. In addition to various international training, conferences, and symposiums, Dr. Devkota has presented oral and poster presentations on international platforms. She is a life member of Nepal Forester Association (NFA).