Remote Sensing and GIS for rural development

Pennan Chinnasamy obtained his Masters degree in Physics from Wesleyan University, Connecticut - US, followed by a doctoral degree, with focus on hydrology, from University of Missouri, US. After his Research fellow position with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), he joined the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) as a Researcher (Geohydrology and Remote Sensing), and was stationed in Nepal and Indian offices, where he focused on climate change impacts on under developed and developing nations. He then joined Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, as a Senior Researcher developing real time flood predicting models for Singapore. He is currently an Assistant Professor with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay - India, under the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) department, where his work primarily focuses on natural resources assessment, monitoring and management in rural regions. 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. He is also an associate faculty with the Interdisciplinary Climate Program and Policy Study Centre in IITB. Pennan is also a visiting professor with University of Oulu, Finland. Over the past decade, Pennan has experience working in NGOs, national and regional government agencies and academic institutions, focusing on sustainable surface and groundwater management plans, climate change impacts, large data analysis and hydrological simulation models. 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.