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Senior Aerosol Scientist
My work focuses on generating scientific evidence on the severity of air pollution and its adverse impacts in the HKH. I designed and was part of the establishment – with the relevant government agencies – of state-of-the-art ambient air quality monitoring stations and autonomous black carbon monitoring stations in Nepal and Bhutan. Also, my work involves planning and conducting field campaigns to characterize emission sources, indoor exposure, air pollution impact on human health and black carbon impact on glaciers. As a Group Lead for our work on air, I am mentoring several Ph.D. and undergraduate students from the region on air pollution issues and have successfully published peer-reviewed journal articles with them. I also develop workshops and training courses with my students to improve the capacity of government partners.
Siva Praveen Puppala
How do you protect the pulse of the planet?
Scientific understanding and evidence are what should compel climate action, and therefore I protect the pulse of the planet through my work which contributes to scientific understanding of air pollution and climate change impacts across the HKH and on livelihoods and brings scientific evidence for better policymaking.
What is your favorite part of the work you do at ICIMOD?
As a physical scientist, we look into scientific outputs and then seek to understand how those outputs are linked to people in the region. The best part of working at ICIMOD is connecting scientific outputs to benefit people of the HKH.
My qualifications
I received my Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Pune, India. Prior to joining ICIMOD, I held different positions and worked in India, Maldives, Thailand, USA, and Germany, accumulating 13 years of experience in field measurements of aerosol, solar fluxes, gaseous species, and meteorological parameters. At the UNEP Regional Resource Center for Asia and the Pacific, I successfully developed and maintained climate and air quality observatories in the region. As a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, I was a flight scientist for unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) measurements of aerosol, radiation, and cloud physics observations. I was also part of the an international programme on cookstove adaptation, called Project Surya, where I measured and documented reductions in indoor black carbon concentrations and emissions following the use of clean cookstoves.
