Sharmini Julita Paramasivam is a veterinarian and pursued a MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare from the University of Edinburgh with a scholarship from the Douglas Houghton Memorial Fund. Sharmini studied macaques and captive enrichment for rehabilitation as part of her MSc dissertation and found an immense appreciation for the species.
She then spent the next few years in Indonesia working as the head veterinarian of a primate rescue centre. Her work to rehabilitate rescued macaques from the pet trade drove her to get involved in understanding human monkey conflict. Following a report about macaques being culled in Malaysia, Sharmini felt strongly that more awareness needed to be raised and founded the Animal Neighbours Project. In 2015, Sharmini moved to the UK and began her career as an academic at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey. She continues to manage the project from the UK with the support of student volunteers. Sharmini continues to go back to Malaysia yearly to conduct field work and develop more collaborations to increase the awareness about the macaque project.
Currently, she is pursuing a clinical specialist training in behaviour medicine with the European College of Animal Welfare and Behaviour Medicine. While her teaching job, ANP research and residency takes up a lot of her time, she still finds time to enjoy cocktails with friends and loves binge watching Netflix. She enjoys talking about animal behaviour and human animal conflict and wants to educate the young generation about living responsibly alongside wildlife.