Chakrabarty earns Global Environmental Change Early Career Award from American Geophysical Union
Rajan Chakrabarty will be recognized for his contributions to global environmental change research from the American Geophysical Union
Rajan Chakrabarty, assistant professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has been selected to receive the 2018 Global Environmental Change Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
He was recognized for his substantive contributions to the award's three interconnected dimensions of research, educational and societal impacts. He has conducted detailed experimental and modeling studies to understand and characterize the complex morphological and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols, and made the resulting data sets freely available to the modeling and satellite-retrieval communities for fine-tuning of their algorithms. His work is providing insights into the drivers of atmospheric and climate conditions over India, where researchers and policy makers are using his work to advance the state of science and develop air quality management plans.
Each year, AGU's sections recognize outstanding work within their scientific field by hosting nearly 25 named lectures and awarding more than 30 awards and prizes annually. Awardees and lecturers are selected for contributing meritorious work or service toward the advancement and promotion of discovery in Earth and space science to benefit humanity.
"The individuals representing the 2018 section awardees and named lecturers are among the best and brightest in their scientific fields," said Eric Davidson, AGU president. "To be named and recognized from among their scientific peer groups is a testament to their innovative research, leadership, and accomplishments. I congratulate Rajan Chakrabarty on this honor and thank him for his contribution to society."
Section awardees and lecturers will be honored or invited to present during AGU's fall meeting in December in Washington, D.C.
In 2017, Chakrabarty was awarded the 2017 Richard M. Goody Award by the electromagnetic and light scattering community for outstanding early-career contributions to atmospheric radiation and remote sensing. He is also a 2015 CAREER Award recipient from the National Science Foundation. He joined the faculty at WashU in 2014 from the Desert Research Institute. He earned a master's and a doctorate in chemical physics from the University of Nevada-Reno and a bachelor's degree in electrical and instrumentation engineering from the University of Madras
