Vikram Savkar

Senior Vice President & Publishing Director, Nature Education

Vikram Savkar is senior vice president and publishing director of Nature Education, the educational division of Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publisher of Nature, Scientific American, and several other leading scientific journals and magazines. Savkar joined NPG to found Nature Education in 2007 after holding leadership positions in digital and print publishing at Pearson Higher Education.

In 2009, Savkar spearheaded the launch of Nature Education's first resource, Scitable (www.nature.com/scitable), an award-winning open collaborative online learning space for the life sciences, currently used each month by students and faculty in more than 180 countries. In 2011 Savkar led the launch of Nature Education's second major resource, Principles of Biology (www.nature.com/principles), the first of a series of affordable interactive college textbooks in the life and physical sciences.

Savkar is actively involved in initiatives to improve science education in the United States and worldwide, serving as NPG's representative to the non-profit, non-partisan CEO-led initiative Change the Equation. He also serves on the National Board of Innovate-Educate, and in conjunction with UNESCO's Division of Natural Sciences heads the World Library of Science, a public-private partnership to bring cost-free learning materials to developing countries. Savkar writes regularly on education in media outlets including Forbes, Huffington Post, and AOL News. Savkar is a frequent public speaker on issues ranging from the future of science education to innovation in publishing at conferences including American Association for the Advancement of Science, Seybold Visionaries, SciFoo, Tata Innovation Forum, E-Learning Africa and the National Academy of Sciences.

Savkar received degrees in physics and classics from Harvard University.