Meet IIT Bombay professor predicting droughts from space, now a NASI Young Scientist

IIT Bombay Associate Professor Karthikeyan Lanka has been selected for the prestigious NASI Young Scientist Award 2026. His research uses satellites, soil moisture data and climate models to predict agricultural droughts, helping scientists, policymakers and farmers better understand how climate change affects food security.IIT Bombay Associate Professor Karthikeyan Lanka has been selected for the prestigious NASI Young Scientist Award 2026. (Photo: X/@iitbombay) An official congratulatory post from IIT Bombay this week brought national attention to Associate Professor Karthikeyan Lanka, who has been selected for the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) Young Scientist Award 2026, one of India's most respected honours for early-career researchers.Professor Lanka is among 16 scientists chosen this year. The award will be presented during NASI's 96th Annual Session at Banaras Hindu University in December 2026.WHAT DOES HE RESEARCH?Professor Lanka leads the Ecohydrology Group at IIT Bombay's Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering and is also an Associate Faculty member in the institute's Climate Studies programme. His research focuses on remote sensing, land-atmosphere interactions and agricultural droughts.Simply put, he studies how satellites can help scientists understand what is happening on the ground. Instead of waiting until crops begin to fail, satellite observations can detect changes in soil moisture, vegetation health and land surface conditions. These signals help researchers predict agricultural droughts much earlier, giving governments and farmers valuable time to prepare.His group also develops better methods to estimate soil moisture using microwave satellite observations and studies how heatwaves and droughts evolve under changing climate conditions.A JOURNEY THROUGH INDIA'S TOP INSTITUTES Lanka completed his BTech in Civil Engineering from SASTRA University before moving to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), where he earned both his Master's and PhD in Civil Engineering.During his doctoral research, he received the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship, spending time as a visiting researcher at Princeton University. He also won the Prof PS Narayana Medal for the best M.Sc. (Engineering) thesis at IISc.After working briefly as a Research Associate at IISc and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Clemson University, he joined IIT Bombay as an Assistant Professor in 2019. He became an Associate Professor in February 2025.Along the way, he has also earned IIT Bombay's Early Research Achiever Award (2022), the C1973 Research Excellence Award (2023), and now serves as an Associate Editor for leading international hydrology and remote sensing journals.'A REFLECTION OF COLLECTIVE EFFORTS'Sharing the news on LinkedIn, Lanka called the recognition "a reflection of the collective efforts of the past and present members of the Ecohydrology Group."Rather than celebrating the award as an individual milestone, he thanked his students, collaborators and mentors, adding that his research group has spent years tackling "challenging scientific questions that often take time, patience, and persistence to answer."He also ended the post with a personal note, thanking his wife, Dr Ila Chawla, for balancing her own career while supporting their family.As climate extremes become more frequent, Professor Lanka's work shows how satellite science can move beyond research papers and become a practical tool for protecting agriculture, water resources and food security.- EndsPublished On: Aug 7, 2026 14:01 IST