Biography
Renee M. Borges is an Emeritus Professor at the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Ecological Science, Bengaluru, India. She is currently a Senior Scientist of the Indian National Academy of Sciences (INSA). Renee was Secretary of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2019–2024 and is currently President of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). She was elected Honorary Fellow of the Entomology Society of India in 2025.
Renee graduated in Zoology and Microbiology from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay (now Mumbai). She obtained a Master’s in Animal Physiology from the Royal Institute, University of Bombay (now Mumbai). She has a PhD in Ecology from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, USA, where she studied the dietary preferences of giant squirrels Ratufa indica in Western Ghat Indian forests in relations to their phytochemistry.
Renee is an evolutionary biologist with a keen interest in inter-species interactions especially those involving plants, insects, and microbes. The main model systems she has researched are the interactions between figs and fig wasps, ants and plants, fungus-farming termites and their fungi, and pollination systems especially brood-site pollination mutualisms. She has been involved in the discovery of the world’s only known nocturnal bee that has colour vision under starlight conditions; this bee Xylocopa tranquebarica has evoked much interest in the evolution of nocturnality from diurnality in bees. Renee is a behavioural ecologist and explores the sensory modalities of olfaction and vision in her work. Renee also collaborates with engineers to understand the functional ecology of mud-based architectures of termite and potter wasp nests.
Renee has served on the Council of the International Society of Chemical Ecology (ISCE), as well as the Council of the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC). She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Biosciences, published jointly by the Indian Academy of Sciences and Springer Nature. She is also Editor-in-Chief of a Book Series on Ecology & Evolution, published jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and Cambridge University Press. She has served on and headed numerous committees of the Indian government related to research funding and also on policy matters related to genetically modified organisms.