Dr. Vikas Poonia is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at MANIT Bhopal, with a Ph.D. from IIT Indore and postdoctoral experience at IISc Bangalore and IUPUI, USA. His research focuses on hydro-climatology, drought and flash-drought monitoring, climate change impacts, and extreme hydrological events. He has published 16+ journal papers, 8 book chapters, and 3 technical reports, and currently mentors four Ph.D. and four M.Tech scholars. Dr. Poonia has received notable awards including the G.M. Nawathe Puraskar and the Prof. U.C. Kothyari Best Ph.D. Thesis Award. He leads an ANRF-funded project on flash droughts in India and is Co-PI on an ICSSR-funded drought adaptation project.
Dr. Somil Swarnkar is an Assistant Professor (Grade-I) in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at IISER Bhopal. He earned his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from IIT Kanpur and completed a SERB-NPDF at ICWaR, IISc Bangalore. Dr. Swarnkar is a recipient of prestigious fellowships, including the AGU Berkner Fellowship and the Royal Society UK Global Challenge Research Fund Fellowship. His research focuses on hydro-climatic extremes, human–water interactions, and sediment dynamics across major Indian river basins. He has published several impactful papers in leading journals in hydrology and geomorphology.
Dr. Priyamitra Munoth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at MANIT Bhopal. He earned his B.Tech from Govt. Engineering College Jhalawar, M.Tech in Remote Sensing & GIS from NIT Surathkal, and Ph.D. in Hydrological Modelling and Remote Sensing applications from MNIT Jaipur. His research interests include Remote Sensing, GIS, LULC change analysis, land surface temperature, hydrological and reservoir modelling, climate change, and watershed management. Dr. Munoth has published 24 research articles in reputed journals, conferences, and book chapters, and serves as a reviewer for several national and international journals.