Ravinder Sehgal was born in Port Jefferson, New York, but spent most of his youth in Palo Alto. His father is from India and mother from Lithuania, and his childhood was deeply influenced by their strong cultures and his extensive traveling to visit relatives and friends in India and Europe. An exemplar of his heritage, Ravinder holds passports from the United States, India, Sweden, and Lithuania and speaks Swedish, German, and Lithuanian in addition to English. He considers himself a citizen of the world.
He started playing the piano when he was six, and became interested in the bassoon at seven after hearing a friend of his sister’s play one. His first woodwind instrument was the clarinet, which he played until he was 15 and grew “big enough to play the bassoon.” Soon he was playing bassoon in the California Youth Symphony and bassoon and harpsichord in the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra.
Ravinder continued his musical studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he took a degree in piano performance with a minor in bassoon and a B.A. in biology. He also studied piano and bassoon at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. An active performer on both bassoon and piano, Ravinder began playing with the Berkeley Symphony as a substitute in 1995 and became a regular member last year.
While he concentrated on music during his undergraduate studies, Ravinder was also strongly interested in science, and when it came time to pick a field of study for his graduate work, he moved in that direction and enrolled in UC San Francisco’s graduate program in biochemistry and biophysics. He earned his Ph.D. in cell biology in 1997, after completing a program that included two years in Stockholm. After graduation he found his primary interests lay in conservation biology and began postdoctoral studies at San Francisco State’s Center for Tropical Research, where he continues as an adjunct professor.
Today Ravinder’s research is focused on birds and their diseases. One of his projects involves collecting blood samples from African birds in intact rainforests and in deforested areas to document how deforestation affects the spread of diseases. His research takes him to Africa every two years, and last summer he spent six weeks living in a tent in the Cameroon jungles with the Baka people (also known as the “pygmies”).
His other major project is closer to home and involves work with California hawks. Volunteers at Marin County’s Golden Gate Raptor Observatory at “Hawk Hill” capture raptors as they converge on the Golden Gate during migration and collect blood samples for Ravinder’s research on how malaria and other parasitic diseases may affect migration patterns. “It’s very common for birds in North America to have malaria,” he explains, “But human malaria and bird malaria are quite different.”
Given that his professional life is in the science world, Ravinder plays as a nonunion member of the Berkeley Symphony, which he says is a perfect fit for him. “I love the music choices Kent puts together,” he observes. “It’s an exciting group to play with, challenging music, and at a high level.”
Ravinder lives in the Mission district in San Francisco and says he loves the diversity of the neighborhood. He is a vegan, and enjoys swimming and painting.
—Richard Reynolds, December 2006
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