Climate Change and Water Security

Dr. Sreevalsa Kolathayar pursued his M.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and served as International Research Staff at UPC BarcelonaTech Spain. He is presently Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Karnataka. Dr. Kolathayar has authored six books and over 75 research articles. He is Associate Editor of two International Journals. His broad research areas are geotechnical earthquake engineering, geosynthetics & geonaturals, and water geotechnics. He is currently the Secretary of the Indian chapter of International Association for Coastal Reservoir Research (IACRR), and Executive Committee Member of Indian Society of Earthquake Technology. In 2017, The New Indian Express honored Dr. Kolathayar with 40 under 40 - South India's Most Inspiring Young Teachers Award. He is the recipient of ISET DK Paul Research Award from Indian Society of Earthquake Technology, IIT Roorkee. He received "IEI Young Engineers Award" by The Institution of Engineers (India), in recognition of his contributions in the field of Civil Engineering. He was recently featured in Geostrata Magazine by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Dr Sreevalsa is the Organizing Chair of the Virtual Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (VCDRR 2021).
Dr. Arpita Mondal works as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. She is also an associate faculty member in the Interdisciplinary Program in Climate Studies at IIT Bombay. Arpita's research focuses on hydroclimatic extremes-how they can be characterized, what causes them and how they are likely to evolve with climate change. She uses a combination of statistical analysis, physical understanding and computer model simulations. Arpita serves as an associate editor of the Springer journal Regional Environmental Change. Shereceived the Early Career Research Award from the Science and Education Research Board (SERB), and the INSPIRE Faculty Award, both funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. She also received the Asian University Alliance (AUA) Scholars' Award. Arpita completed her Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, M.Tech at IIT Bombay and Bachelors in Civil Engineering at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. As a Ph.D. student, Arpita had received the Endeavour Research Fellowship (Government of Australia), Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship (USIEF) and the Berkner Travel Grant of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Arpita scored the first rank in the university in both her bachelors and masters. Dr. Siau Chen Chian Darren is an associate professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained his Ph.D. and B.Eng.(1st Class with Gold Medal) from CambridgeUniversity and Nanyang Technological University, respectively. Dr. Chian's contribution in earthquake engineering lies in the field of catastrophe modelling, landslides and damage vulnerability of underground structures. He was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as the geotechnical specialist to carry out reconnaissance missions at the Mw7.6 Padang Earthquake in 2009, Mw9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and Mw7.8 Muisne Earthquake in 2016. Dr. Chian was named Top 10 Innovators Under 35 in Asia by the MIT Technology Review for his novel contribution in catastrophe modelling in 2016. Dr. Chian is a nominated member of the Technical Committee on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering under the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). He is also an Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Young Scientist supported by the International Science Council (ISC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster RiskReduction (UNDRR).