ABOUT
I am a Climate Scientist at IITM Pune and a Ph.D. alumna of IIT Bombay. My research sits at the intersection of oceanography, ecology, climate science, and AI—asking questions that no single field could answer alone. At the heart of this work is a deceptively small organism: phytoplankton. Microscopic yet foundational, they form the base of the entire marine food web and produce over half the oxygen we breathe. Understanding how they are responding to a changing climate, I believe, is essential to understanding the planet itself.
To study these systems, I combine satellite data, computer modeling, and artificial intelligence. I am involved in the development of the IITM Earth System Model—the first climate model from South Asia used by the IPCC to inform global climate reports—and lead the Early Career Scientist Network of the International Indian Ocean Expedition Phase 2, fostering collaboration among researchers from Indian Ocean rim nations spanning 36 countries. I serve on UN-affiliated programmes and government committees, bringing the same rigour I apply in research into spaces where policy gets made.
I am deeply invested in who gets to do this science and where. I have served as adjunct faculty for Advanced Physical Oceanography and Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions at the WMO’s Regional Meteorological Training Centre, serve as Vice President of the Ocean Society of India’s Pune chapter, and have organised over ten national and international workshops connecting early-career researchers across the Indian Ocean region. The Global South bears the greatest burden of climate change while remaining underrepresented in the research shaping our future—closing that gap is central to my work, reflected in my involvement with the WCRP Global South Initiative (GSITT) and the MCR Hub.
I am equally committed to making climate science legible beyond academia. Through public outreach and science communication, I work to bridge the distance between complex data and the communities most affected by what that data describes—believing that science loses its purpose if it cannot be understood, acted upon, and owned by the people it concerns.
My latest research in Frontiers in Climate explores how complex climate data can be translated into real-world action for more resilient communities.
