Curiosity is the thread that ties most of my life together. I grew up in Calcutta, India, where my interest in the atmosphere started with Cyclone Amphan, a super-cyclone that hit my city just before the pandemic, and that pull eventually carried me across the world to Tucson, Arizona for a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences with Dr. Avelino Arellano at the University of Arizona's MAAC Lab. Along the way I've worked on aerosol transport and its impact on snow cover and freshwater resources over High Mountain Asia with NSF NCAR, ozone chemistry over the arid Southwest, and now, as a postdoc, on how machine learning can help us understand the messier corners of the Earth system. I keep coming back to atmospheric science because almost nothing in it stands alone. Pollution, weather, climate, and land all talk to each other, often in ways we are only beginning to work out.

The other side of that curiosity is wanting to share what I learn. Through the CIRTL Postdoc Pathways program, I co-taught ATMO/CHEE 469B/569B (Air Pollution II: Aerosols) with Dr. Sylvia Sullivan in the Spring of 2026. A lot of what I try to do in that classroom comes from remembering what it felt like to be a student myself, especially one who arrived in a new country and had to figure out a new academic culture from scratch. Research and learning are hard enough on their own, it doesn't have to be lonely as well. So I try to be the kind of mentor I would have wanted, someone patient, honest about uncertainty, generous with time, and willing to admit when I don't know something. I'd rather plant a few good ideas in a student's head than rush through a long list of facts they'll forget by finals.

Outside of work, I'm curious about plenty of other things too. More to come.