About Me

I am a sea-going oceanographer working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Oceanography, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa under the supervision of Dr. Hyodae Seo. I primarily study upper ocean processes and air–sea interactions at small length and time scales, aiming to understand how these processes influence larger-scale oceanic and atmospheric systems.

Prior to this, I was a PhD candidate at the School for Marine Sciences and Technology (UMass Dartmouth) under the supervision of Prof. Amit Tandon. For my PhD dissertation, I focused on Diurnal Warm Layers in the Bay of Bengal, which evolve over the course of a day and have potential implications for small-scale ocean mixing, daily atmospheric convection, and larger-scale atmospheric processes such as the Indian Summer Monsoons. My research combined in-situ observations, remote sensing, and 1-D and 3-D numerical ocean modeling.

Additionally, I have a keen interest in hurricanes and tropical cyclones, and I was fortunate to study the role of small-scale processes in the recovery of a cold wake following Cyclone Biparjoy in 2023. For more details on my research, please see my research page.

Before graduate school, I completed my undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, India, majoring in mechanical engineering.

Academic motivation

I spent my childhood in Visakhapatnam, a city located in the East Coast of India and thus I have always been curious about ocean dynamics, tropical cyclones, Indian summer monsoons and ocean-atmosphere exchanges. As a mechanical engineering undergraduate student and learning core concepts like advanced engineering math, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, heat transfer etc, I stumbled upon the course “Introduction to Ocean Dynamics”. This was followed by “Fundamentals of Weather and Climate” which re-ignited my curiosity towards oceans and atmosphere. My fascination for such phenomenon coupled with a desire to make meaningful contributions to the society ensured that I first pursued a summer fellowship at Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad, following which I applied for a PhD candidate position in Tandon labs. After six years as a graduate student, including 97 days at sea, I remain as motivated as ever—if not more so—to continue contributing to this important field, due to which I am now working as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

If you are interested to know more about this journey, the following article will be an interesting read. UMass Dartmouth also did a feature story which can be read here