Sasanka Talukdar

Contact Information

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
2275 Speedway Stop C9000, Austin, TX 78712-1722
Phone: (737) 420-8014
Email: sasanka@utexas.edu
GitHub: SasTalukdar
LinkedIn: SasTalukdar

Education

The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences (Current CGPA: 4/4)
August 2023 – Present

National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India
M.Sc. in Atmospheric Sciences, CGPA: 9.19/10
July 2019 – June 2021

Gauhati University, India
B.Sc. in Physics, CGPA: 7.4/10
July 2015 – June 2018

Publications

• Priya, K., Sasanka, T., & Osuri, K. K. (2024). Enhanced Prediction of Premonsoon Thunderstorms over Eastern India through INSAT-3D Sounding Data Assimilation. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
• Sasanka, T., Priya, K., Osuri, K. K., & Niyogi, D. (2023). Thunderstorm detection from GPM IMERG rainfall: Climatology of dynamical and thermodynamical processes over India. International Journal of Climatology, 43(14), 6686-6705.
• Sasanka, T., Osuri, K. K., & Niyogi, D. (2023). Machine learning and dynamics based error-index method for the detection of monsoon onset vortex over the Arabian Sea: Climatology and composite structures. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 149(751), 537-555.
• Priya, K., Sasanka, T., & Osuri, K. K. (2023). Land use land cover representation through supervised machine learning methods: sensitivity on simulation of urban thunderstorms in the east coast of India. Natural Hazards, 116(1), 295-317.

Conferences and Summer Schools

• 5th Summer School on Theory, Mechanisms and Hierarchical Modelling of Climate Dynamics: Convection and Clouds; 01 - 19 July 2024; International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy.
• Sasanka, T., Osuri, K. K., & Niyogi, D. (2022, December). An Objective Analysis of the Detection of Monsoon Onset Vortex over the Arabian Sea. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2022, pp. A31B-02).

Research Experience

Graduate Research Assistant
September 2023 – Present
University of Texas at Austin, TX

• Working on the development of a novel modeling system for the operational prediction of extreme weather events across the Indian subcontinent as part of a collaboration between UT Austin, NOAA, and MoES, India.
• Investigated the feedback between soil moisture and the intensity of heat domes during the Texas heatwaves in the summer of 2023 using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.
• Gained experience in simulating hurricanes in the Atlantic basin using the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) modeling system.

Junior Research Fellow
June 2021 – July 2023
National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India

• Worked on the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Gov. of India funded project “Numerical Modeling of Urban effects on the characterization of rainfall of severe thunderstorm over Eastern states of India”.
• Developed a database of pre-monsoon thunderstorm events in India using global precipitation measurement (GPM IMERG) data.
• Studied the climatological characteristics of severe thunderstorms and its differences with non-thunderstorm days.
• Studied lightning climatology over India with TRMM LIS data.
• Assessed the sensitivity of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) representation in the WRF model on the evolution of mesoscale convective systems.
• Studied the impact of INSAT-3D data assimilation on the simulation of pre-monsoon thunderstorms in India.
• Gained experience in handling large datasets of various formats (NetCDF, HDF, GRD, GRIB, GeoTIFF, etc) as well as working with different satellite-based level 2 data products.
• Gained experience in simulating extreme weather events in high resolution WRF model as well as 3DVAR application within WRF model.

Graduate Researcher
August 2020 – May 2021
National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India

• Developed a novel approach for the detection and tracking of monsoon onset vortices from reanalysis datasets using a combination of dynamics and machine learning techniques.
• Studied the climatological structures of monsoon onset vortices based on the detected locations.

Teaching Experience

Graduate Teaching Assistant
January 2024 – June 2024
University of Texas at Austin, TX

• Served as a teaching assistant in the Department Earth and Planetary Sciences for the course “Introduction to Geology”.

Physics Faculty
Jan 2021 – Jun 2021
Enlighten Career Institute, India (Remote)

• Joined as a physics faculty to guide a group of students preparing for the university entrance examination.

Managerial Experience

• Organizing committee member, website design, and maintenance. LAI-2023 conference, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, NIT Rourkela (2023).
• Manager, Departmental Vishwakarma Puja committee, Dept of Physics, B. Borooah College (2016).

Academic Achievements

• Early Career Graduate Student Award: 13th Annual Jackson School Student Research Symposium 2024.
• Joint Admission test for Masters – Physics (Among top 5%) 2019.
• Ishan Uday Special Scholarship for North Eastern Region (UGC India) 2015.

Computational Skills

• Expert: Python
• Intermediate: WRF model simulation and data assimilation, Linux, Scikit-learn, Tensorflow, MATLAB, Bash, Grads, FORTRAN, C, C++, Parallel computation code development in Python, Web development (HTML, CSS)
• Beginner: JavaScript, Google Earth Engine
• Software Package: Enterprise: A package that aims to make computation and visualization simpler for atmospheric analysis. Enterprise

Non-Academic Achievements

• Basic Rock Climbing Course (2020)
• Training camp on Adventure Rock Climbing (2018)
• Completed Yoga Course with A+ grade (2012)
• Rajya Puraskar Scout Award (2009)