Neerav Yadav

Neerav was born and raised in Rajasthan, India. He is passionate about wildlife (especially reptiles), conservation, and ecology. After college, he worked at Jan Chetna Sansthan, a non-governmental organization that focuses on rural livelihood, education, and women’s empowerment in the tribal villages of South Rajasthan. From Jan Chetna, Neerav moved to the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Center for Herpetology, where he managed a residential volunteer program for Indian and international visitors at one of the premiere reptile zoos and wildlife education facilities in South Asia. He also assisted with zoo management, research, and documentary filmmaking. In 2012, he founded an ecological education and travel company, through which he has led student groups from the U.S. and India on programs in Rajasthan, Ladakh, South India, and Sri Lanka. He has also led programs in India with Putney Student Travel.

Neerav is a lead trainer at Smokeless Cook Stove Foundation, an NGO working towards addressing the major issues of household pollution in rural India by training communities to make their own smokeless cook stoves at no cost.

This will be Neerav’s fourth year co-directing the Bridge Year India program. He is looking forward to welcoming and sharing meaningful learning experiences with the upcoming group of Princeton students in India. Neerav is fluent in Hindi and English.