Pennan Chinnasamy

Bio Summary

Pennan Chinnasamy is an Associate Professor with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB)- the highest ranked University in India, under the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), and associate faculty with Climate Sciences (IDPCS), Policy Sciences (CPS) and Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (CMINDS) departments. He is also a visiting adjunct Professor with University of Nebraska, Lincoln and Oulu University, Finland., working extensively on water issues.

Pennan received his Bachelor's in Physics from University of Madras, India, followed by a double Master's in Physics from Bhrathidasan University (India) and Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA). He obtained his PhD from the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. He then worked with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (India), the International Water Management Institute (Nepal), the Nanyang Water and Energy Institute (Singapore), and then joined as a faculty with IITB. Pennan teaches graduate courses on soil and water management, GIS and Remote Sensing tools and also mentors graduate and PhD students. He is the founding director of the Rural Data Research and Analysis (RuDRA) lab, which is the first Big data lab for rural regions, housed in an academic institution in India.

Over the past decade, Pennan has experience working in National and regional government agencies, NGOs and academic institutions, focusing on sustainable surface and groundwater management plans, climate change impacts, large data analysis and hydrological simulation models. He has been part of projects funded up to 47 million USD, across many countries. His work has been recognized in many internationally peer reviewed journals, policy briefs and government reports (e.g. EPA, NEA- Nepal, World Bank, Asian Development Bank) and are being used to formulate scientifically validated best management plans.

visit The Rural Data Research and Analysis (RuDRA) Lab website