Dr. Sonam obtained her doctorate in earth sciences from the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar in 2019, and her B.Sc.(H) and M.Sc. in geology from Hansraj College, the University of Delhi in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Her specializations are in the field of fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, and geospatial science.
Dr. Sonam was awarded the CSIR-Research Associate grant in the year 2021 and is currently a CSIR-Research Associate at IIT, Gandhinagar. She is also recipient of the CSIR-UGC JRF fellowship in the field of earth, atmospheric, ocean and planetary Sciences 2013-2018, and the DST-SERB International Travel grant to present her work at the European Geosciences Union (EGU), 2018. After her Ph.D., she worked as a post-doctoral Research Associate on the arid zone rivers and biodiversity, as a part of the Gujarat state climate change project under the National Mission for Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change, DST, Government of India.
Dr. Sonam’s Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Postdoctoral Research project is regarding environmental flow modelling for sustainable management of river systems. To understand the gravity of the crisis associated with degraded river health and to ensure sustainable development for all stakeholders, a combined socio-hydro-geomorphic approach, including indigenous knowledge and geospatial techniques, is needed. However, this integrated strategy lacks well-defined methodology. Dr. Sonam is using geospatial tools and integrating them with indigenous knowledge to model environmental flow needed to ensure a healthy functioning river: geospatial techniques are used to analyze river morphological susceptibility to exogenous forcing and indigenous knowledge is used to explain a river’s flow requirements at local scales.