Dr. Lakhima Chutia, a student of the first batch of Integrated M. Sc. in Physics in Dibrugarh University, who has very recently completed her Ph.D. from the Centre for Atmospheric Studies, Dibrugarh University under the supervision of Dr. Binita Pathak and Prof. P K Bhuyan, is joining as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in the Iowa Technology Institute at the University of IOWA, Iowa City, USA on November 3, 2021. She will work with professor Jun Wang on air quality and climate change. She will be involved in NASA and NOAA-funded projects on the transport and climate effects of aerosols from volcanic eruptions, biomass burning and anthropogenic emissions. Her research approach will involve a combined use of satellite remote sensing and chemistry transport models such as GEOS-chem and WFR-chem. Satellite measurements from MODIS, MISR, OMI, CALIPSO and other NASA’s EOS sensors will be used to constrain and improve the atmospheric chemistry models.
Her research career in Atmospheric Science started during the 6th semester of her Integrated M.Sc. (2009-2014) course under the supervision of Prof. P K Bhuyan, in the Department of Physics, followed by the final year M. Sc. project as a student fellow in the Space Science Promotion Scheme (SSPS) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). After her M. Sc., she has worked as a Project Assistant in the ISRO sponsored Research project entitled “Aerosol Radiative Forcing over India (ARFI)” during Nov, 2014 – May, 2015. Being the 1st rank holder in M.Sc. She received an INSPIRE Fellowship for PhD from, DST, Government of India. After successful completion of INSPIRE tenure, she was appointed as a senior research fellow in the DST sponsored “Human and Institutional Capacity Building (HICAB) project” under the umbrella of the nation action plan on climate change, Govt. of India under Dr. Binita Pathak, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Adjunct Faculty, Centre for Atmospheric Studies and Prof. P K Bhuyan. During her PhD she has visited various laboratories/Institutions in India (IISc, VSSC, PRL, SAC, IIRS, etc.) and abroad (in Germany, Malaysia and France) to attend either research courses and training programmes or to access available laboratory facilities. Her international and national awards include- “Young Scientists Award” and “Honorable Mention Award” in URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS) 2020, Rome, Italy (held online); 3rd prize, in Student Paper Competition, “2020 URSI Regional Conference on Radio Science” (URSI-RCRS 2020) held at the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi, 12-14 Feb, 2020. She has published seven (7) research papers in reputed international journals and five (5) in conference proceedings so far.
On her Achievement, the Department of Physics as well as the Centre for Atmospheric Studies felicitated her in presence of the faculty members and Research Scholars of the department and the centre on 27th October, 2021.