Born and raised in a rural area of Balkot (Current Chhatradev Village Palika), Arghakhanachi district of Nepal, Dr. Keshav Bhattarai has contributed hugely to bridging Nepali and US education systems.
Bhattarai family comprised four siblings (three brothers and one sister). The family lived on subsistence farming. He earned an Intermediate of Science (I. Sc.), Bachelor of Science (B. Sc.), and Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Tribhuvan University. He also earned an Associate of Indian Forest College (AIFC) post-graduate Diploma from Indian Forest College, Dehradun, India, and a Masters of Science (M.Sc.) in Natural Resource Management from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K.
He completed his Ph. D. at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, US, in 2000 in Geography. He later joined Eastern Kentucky University as a faculty member, and in 2002, he moved to the University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Missouri.
His academic career began as an Associate Instructor at the Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, in 1996. He has taught various courses at Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Central Missouri. Dr. Bhattarai has been a member of the Nepal Foresters’ Association since 1983 and the Association of American Geographers since 2002.
Dr. Bhattarai has been working as a Professor/ Geography at the School of Geoscience, Physics, and Safety Sciences at the University of Central Missouri since 2011. Dr. Bhattarai has also worked as a Short-term Consultant to the World Bank to assess Hydropower potential in Nepal. He has also worked as an Interim Chair Department of Geography at the University of Central Missouri from 2009 to 2011.
Dr. Bhattarai bridges the University of Central Missouri (UCM) and various universities in Nepal. Nepali universities and UCM have started 2+2 and 3+1 programs with UCM. The 2+2 refers to completing two years of undergraduate studies in Nepal and the remaining two years in the US to complete undergraduate studies and vice-versa. The 3+1 program refers to completing three years of education in Nepal and transferring to the US and vice-versa to complete an undergraduate degree.
The Bhattarai family also is working to establish the Tilak-Jalpa Foundation (in memory of their Late Parents) to provide scholarships to low-income but high-achieving undergraduate students in Nepal.
Before starting his higher studies in the USA, Dr. Bhattarai worked in various capacities under the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation in Nepal from 1983 to 1995. Dr. Bhattarai left the Government’s job due to repeated political illogical impositions on him on the settlements of political cadres in forest areas without any norms and land use planning.
Dr. Bhattarai’s urbanization research reveals that Nepal’s urbanization is moving too quickly without urban dwellers’ needed planning and infrastructure. The arbitrary political ad-hoc decision to annex many rural areas into urban definition from 15 percent in 2014 to 65 percent in 2017 has increased vulnerabilities among urban dwellers since Nepal is located in between frequently moving Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. Nepali urbanization has become a rural polis (political decision to annex rural areas into municipalities). Such ad-hoc urbanization has increased land costs and taxes on low-income people without giving any needed facilities to them. Dr. Bhattarai served as a Fulbright Specialist at the Central Department of Geography (CDG) at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu in the summer of 2018 to facilitate CDG to embark on active participation in urban planning through research.
Dr. Bhattarai is the recipient of the Gorkhadakhsin Bahu, the award for civil servants decorated by King Birendra for outstanding performance in forestry service and administration in 1993. He also received Mahendra Vidyabhusan for his academic excellence in 2004. Moreover, he is also the recipient of the All-Round Forest Award by Indian Forest College, Dehradun, India in 1983, the International Scholar Award by the University of Central Missouri in 2003, and the Chairperson’s award for Outstanding Academic Performance by the Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington in 1999. He has also bagged half a dozen faculty research awards for his academic excellence from 2002 to 2017.
He has published several academic papers, authored two books, co-authored one book, and contributed many book chapters journal articles, and presented his research at several professional meetings.
Dr. Keshav Bhattarai: Well-Decorated Professor from Missouri.
