Dr. Sarita Azad


Associate Professor

Dr. Azad's research interests lie in the development and application of statistical methods for the analysis of data from many domains, such as climate, epidemiological and health.

Her work on the analysis of the COVID-19 transmission in Indian territory can be seen below:

Watch Video here

Mountainous terrain poses a challenge in understanding climatic patterns, because of high variability, both in space and time, associated with the mesoscale process. In order to effectively provide insights on climate data online, the Statistical Data Analysis tool below was built to visualise climatic characteristics such as rainfall, temperature, wind speed, etc. over the Himalayan region through interactive graphs and statistical metrics.

Statistical Data Analysis Tool

Phone: +91 9736548922

Email: sarita@iitmandi.ac.in

IRINS Research Gate Google Scholar

Education


 
 
 
 
 
(2008)

Ph.D

Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Technology, Delhi University, India worked under the supervision of Prof. Roddam Narasimha, (FRS) at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

 
 
 
 
 
(1999)

M.Sc

Department of Mathematics,IIT Delhi, India.

 
 
 
(1997)

B.Sc Hons.

Department of Mathematics, Delhi University (DU), New Delhi, India.

Invited Talks


 
 
 
 
 
July 2023

Monitoring and prediction of extreme rainfall events over Himalayan region, Presented at VIT Vellore Webinar

 
 
 
 
 
March 2023

Covid-19 transmission in India, and the road ahead towards pandemic management, Presented at Delhi University Webinar

 
 
 
 
 
June 2020

Unravelling the social network of COVID-19 in India from 30 January to 6 April 2020, Presented at Delhi University Webinar

Awards & Fellowships


 
 
 
 
 
(2021)

Teaching Honour Roll Award

 
 
 
 
 
(2016)

INSA fellowship

Visiting scientist, Technische Universität Darmstadt Institute of Telecommunications Signal Processing Group, Germany.

 
 
 
 
 
(2011)

President's Award for Excellence

At the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi.

 
 
 
(2009)

Dr. D. C. Pavate Fellowship

visiting scientist at Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK

Research Groups



Ph.D students:

1. Kamana Mishra Ph.D (ongoing, 2022-present)
Effects of air pollution and climate change on the Northwest Himalayas

2. Yogita Bala (ongoing, 2021-present)
Observed temperature and precipitation changes over the Northwest Himalayas

3. Ankur Suri Ph.D (ongoing, 2019-present)
Optimal placement of rain gauge networks over complex terrains of Northwest Himalayas for monitoring extreme rainfall events

4. Neeraj Poonia (Completed , 2019-2023)
Temperature Modeling Using Statistical Distributions in Northwest Himalayas

5. Sourabh Garg Ph.D (completed , 2016- 2022)
Real-time monitoring and forecasting of cloudburst events over Northwest Himalaya.

6. Parvat Jena Ph.D (completed, 2014-2019)
Observed and Projected Changes in Indian Monsoon Rainfall Extremes under Changing Climate RCP8.5 Scenario

7. Pankaj Narula Ph.D (completed, 2012-2017)
Functional data analysis of temperature and rainfall observations for regional indexing of climate change.


M.Sc/M.tech students:

1. Garima Dahiya MSc. Applied Mathematics (completed 2017-2018)
Evaluation of high resolution satellite data towards prediction of extreme events over Northwest Himalayas.

2. Harsh MSc. Applied Mathematics (completed 2017-2018)
Impact of urban heat Island effect on precipitation over a complex geographic environment in Himachal Pradesh.

3. Shahida Siddiqui M.Tech Biotechnology (completed 2018-2019)
Network mapping of HIV and TB co-infection and its comorbidities.

4. Nikhil Raghav MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2018-2019)
Construction of gridded data using geospatial interpolation methods over Beas basin.

5. Alka MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2019-2020)
Indian monsoon rainfall prediction using deep learning approach.

6. Anurag Tiwari MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2019-2020)
Spatial distribution and seasonal variability of rainfall in a mountainous basin in the Himalayan region.

7. Nawang Thakur MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2019-2020)
Hybrid hydrological models for long lead flood forecasting

8. Payal MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2019-2020)
A deep neural network modeling framework to reduce bias in satellite precipitation products.

9. Kaushal Pinky MSc. Applied Mathematics (ongoing 2019-2020)
How Big data and predictive analytics can help manage climate change.

Academic Positions


 
 
 
 
 
(Aug. 2021- present)

Associate Professor,

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (SMSS),IIT Mandi, India.

 
 
 
 
 
(July 2011-July 2021)

Assistant Professor,

SBS, IIT Mandi, India

 
 
 
(Oct. 2009-June 2011)

Project associate

Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis(IDSA), New Delhi, India.

Post-doc positions


 
 
 
 
 
(June-Sept. 2009)

Visiting fellow,

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) , University of Cambridge, UK.

 
 
 
(June 2008-May 2009)

Project associate,

Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India

Publications


  • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2022) On bivariate modeling using a novel statistical distribution with homogeneous marginals International Journal of Climatology https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7888 Impact factor 4.069
  • S. Garg and Sarita Azad (2022) Regional selection of satellite precipitation products within Northwest Himalaya. Theoretical and Applied Climatology (accepted) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-022-04277-0 Impact factor 3.17
  • P. Jena, Sarita Azad (2022) Identification of wet-prone regions over Northwest Himalaya using high-resolution satellite seasonal estimates. Natural Hazards 112 (2), 1727-1748. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-022-05246-6 Impact factor 3.14
  • V. Kodesia and Sarita Azad (2022 ) An optimal vaccination strategy for pandemic management and its impact on economic recovery Current Science (accepted )
  • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2022) Projections of annual maximum temperature over Northwest Himalayas using probability distribution models Theoretical and Applied Climatology 149, 1599–1627 DOI: 10.1007/s00704-022-04121-5 Impact factor 3.17
  • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2022) Alpha power exponentiated Teissier distribution with application to climate datasets Theoretical and Applied Climatology 149, 339–353 DOI:10.1007/s00704-022-04039-y Impact factor 3.17
  • Sourabh Garg, Usha Kumari, Pravat Jena, & Sarita Azad (2022), Evaluation of IMDAA (0.125o x 0.125o) and IMERG (0.1ox0.1o) for cloudburst events over the Northwest Himalayan region International Journal of Climatology (accepted) Impact factor 4.069
  • A. Suri, P. Jena, and Sarita Azad (2022) Rainfall wet spells variability across temperature mean change years in the Northwest Himalayan region Earth and Space Science (AGU) (accepted) Impact factor 3.7
  • S. Garg, and Sarita Azad (2022)WRF prediction for cloudburst events using high -resolution dataset over the Northwest Himalayas Natural Hazards (under review) Impact factor 3.14
  • A. Suri and Sarita Azad (2022)Optimal placement of rain gauge networks in complex terrains for monitoring extreme rainfall events: A review Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (under review) Impact factor 3.3
  • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2021) The spatiotemporal trajectory of COVID-19 in India – insight into past pandemics and future recommendations Current Science 121(11), 1425-1435 DOI: 10.18520/cs/v121/i11/1425-1432 Impact factor 1.17
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2021) Observed and projected changes in extreme drought and wet-prone regions over India using a new vulnerability index Climate Dynamics 57(9), 2595-2613 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-05824-7 Impact factor 4.37
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2021) A novel method to detect drought and flood years in Indian rainfall associated with weak and strong monsoon. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 145(1), 747-761 DOI: 10.1007/s00704-021-03652-7 Impact factor 3.17
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad and Sushma Devi (2020)Tracking the spread of COVID-19 in India via social networks in the early phase of the pandemic. Journal of Travel Medicine 27(8) DOI: 10.1093/jtm/taaa130 Impact factor 3.91
  • A. Suri and Sarita Azad (2020) Design of optimal expansion of rain gauge network in the Himalayan region for monitoring extreme events. AGU Fall meeting.
  • P. Jena, S. Garg, Sarita Azad (2020) Performance analysis of IMD high-resolution gridded rainfall (0.25° × 0.25°) and satellite estimates for detecting cloudburst events over Northwest Himalaya. Journal of Hydrometeorology DOI: 10.1175/JHM-D-19-0287.1 Impact factor 4.34
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2020) Spatio-temporal characteristics of extreme droughts and their association with sea surface temperature over the Cauvery River basin, India. Natural Hazards 104(4) DOI: 10.1007/s11069-020-04270-8 Impact factor 3.1
  • G. Dahiya, P. Jena, S. Garg, Sarita Azad (2020) Inter-comparison of high-resolution satellite estimates for cloudburst events in the Northwest Himalaya, Book Chapter, Himalayan Weather and Climate and its Impact on the Environment, Editors: A. P. Dimri, B. Bookhagen, M. Stoffel, T. Yasunari, (Eds.) Springer. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030296834
  • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2020) Short-term forecasts of COVID-19 spread across Indian states until 1 May 2020. Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine DOI: 10.20944/preprints202004.0491.v1
  • P. Singh, P. Narula, and Sarita Azad (2020) Analysis of genetic diversity in Indian natural populations of drosophila ananassae. Frontiers in bioscience 12:237-253 DOI: 10.2741/e869
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2019) Weakening of triennial oscillation of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (at 1o x 1o gridded scale) under future global warming. Earth and Space Science 6 (7): 1262-1272 Impact factor 3.0
  • P. Narula, K. Sarkar, Sarita Azad (2018) Indexing of driving rain exposure in India based on daily gridded data. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 175, 244-251 Impact factor 4.0
  • P. Narula, K. Sarkar, Sarita Azad (2018) A functional evaluation of the spatio-temporal patterns of temperature-change in India. International Journal of Climatology DOI: 10.1002/joc.5174 Impact factor 4.069
  • P. Narula, K. Sarkar, and Sarita Azad (2017) Driving rain indices for India at 1°× 1° gridded scale. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 161:1-8 Impact factor 4.0
  • Sarita Azad, and M. Rajeevan (2016) Possible shift in the ENSO-Indian monsoon rainfall relationship under future global warming. Scientific Report. 6 , 20145; doi: 10.1038/srep20145 Impact factor 5.13
  • P. Narula, V. Piratla, A. Bansal, Sarita Azad, and P Lio (2016) Infection, Disease & Health 21 (4): 184-191 Impact factor 2.27
  • P. Jena, Sarita Azad, and M. Rajeevan (2016) CMIP5 Projected changes in the annual cycle of Indian monsoon rainfall. Climate 4(1): 14
  • P. Narula, Sarita Azad, and Pietro Lio' (2015) A Bayesian framework for estimating reproduction number in Tuberculosis transmission model. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 27(7): 723–732 Impact factor 1.45
  • P. Narula, P. Sihota, Sarita Azad, and Pietro Lio' (2015 Analyzing seasonality and predictors of Tuberculosis across Indian states. Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health 4(5): 337–346 Impact factor 2.2
  • Sarita Azad, S. Debnath, and M. Rajeevan (2015) Analyzing predictability in Indian monsoon: A data analytic approach. Environmental process 2(4): 717-727
  • D. Sharma and Sarita Azad (2015) Selection of India’s energy resources: fuzzy decision making approach. Energy Systems 6(3): 439-453
  • P. Jena, Sarita Azad, and M. Rajeevan (2015) Statistical selection of the best model in the CMIP5 set for climate change projections of Indian monsoon rainfall. Climate 3: 858-875
  • Sarita Azad and P. Lio' (2014) Emerging trends of malaria-dengue geographical coupling in the south-east Asia region. Journal of vector-borne diseases 51:165-171
  • Bansal, Sarita Azad and Pietro Lio' (2014) Malaria incidence forecasting and its implication to intervention strategies in south-east Asia region. Springer Proceedings in Complexity pp 919-926
  • D. Sharma and Sarita Azad (2013) Selection of India’s energy resources using fuzzy Vikor method. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development , 06 (01): 19-36
  • S. Mathur, A. Chuhan, and Sarita Azad (2013) Ranking Indian states based on socio-economic factors. Advanced Science Focus 1, 1-1
  • Sarita Azad and A. Gupta (2012) Uncovering the economic coherence among the Asian giants and the western world. Advanced Science, Engineering, and Medicine 5, 1–5
  • Sarita Azad, Shashank Mathur, and Arvind Gupta (2013) Evaluating India’s strategic partnership using analytical hierarchy process. Advanced Science Focus 1: 96-101
  • Sarita Azad and N.S. Sisodia (2011) Trends of urban growth in Asian mega-cities. Asian Profile , 39(2): 129-136
  • Sarita Azad and A. Gupta (2011) A Quantitative Assessment on 26/11 Mumbai Attack using Social Networks Analysis Journal of terrorism Research 2: 4-14
  • Sarita Azad (2011) Extreme Indian Monsoon Rainfall Years and the Sunspot Cycle. Advanced Science Letters 4(1): 1-5
  • Sarita Azad (2011) Identification of common periodicities between correlated Indian rainfall time series Advanced Science Letters 4 (1): 159–164
  • Sarita Azad and R. Narasimha (2010) Periodicities in Indian monsoon rainfall over spectrally homogeneous regions. International J. Climatology 30: 2289–2298 Impact factor 4.069.
  • Sarita Azad and R. Srivastava (2009) A study of logistic map using wavelets. International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Statistics 14 (J09): 60-68
  • Sarita Azad and R. Narasimha (2008) A wavelet based significance test for periodicities in Indian monsoon rainfall. International Journal of Wavelets, Multi-resolution and Information Processing 6(2): 291–304 Impact factor 0.46
  • Sarita Azad and R. Narasimha (2007) Multi-resolution analysis for separating closely spaced frequencies with an application to Indian monsoon rainfall data. International Journal of Wavelets, Multi-resolution and Information Processing 5(5): 735-752 Impact factor 0.46
  • Book/Book Chapter


  • Sarita Azad (2011), "Applied Wavelet Analysis of Indian Monsoon Rainfall”, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG, Germany.
  • Sarita Azad and N.S. Sisodia (2011), "Asia's Urban Futures and its Implications for Security”, Imagining Asia in 2030: Trends, Scenarios and Alternatives (Ed.), 137-152, Academic Foundation.
  • Conferences


  • S. Garg and Sarita Azad (2018) Evaluation of high-resolution satellite products for monitoring cloudburst events over Northwest Himalayan region at International Conference on Applied and Computational Mathematics (ICIAM), November 23-25 Department of Mathematics, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal.
  • S. Garg and Sarita Azad (2019) Performance assessment of CHIRPS, PERSIANN-CCS precipitation products across North-west Himalayas” at 9th International congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), July 15-19 Valencia, Spain.
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2019) Prediction skill of extreme precipitation events & tropical cyclones (IP4) Workshop, November 25-28, 2019, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune, India.
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2019) Performance analysis of IMD gridded data and high resolution satellite estimates for monitoring extreme events over Northwest Himalayas” at International workshop (C2E2 Himalaya workshop) on Climate Change in Himalayan region, April 18-20, 2019, School of engineering (Civil department), IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2018) Parameter selection for the detection of mean change years in Indian average temperature” at International Conference on Applied and Computational Mathematics, November 23-25, 2018, Department of Mathematics, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal.
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2018) A robust method to detect non-linear trend in a time series. International Congress of Mathematician, 1-9 Aug. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
  • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2018) Mean change years Detection in average Temperature using Functional Data Analysis: A CMIP5 model analysis. International conference on applied mathematics and research, 06-08 Sept. Madurai Tamil Nadu.
  • P. Jena, K. S. Kasiviswanathan and Sarita Azad (2018) Intensity-Duration-Frequency of the meteorological drought: a case study on Cauvery River basin, India. 18-20 Sept. University of Lancaster.
  • Sarita Azad, Ankit Bansal and Pietro Lio' (2012) Malaria Epidemic Prediction and Intervention in South East Asia Region", ECCS'12 Satellite Meeting, Data-driven modeling of contagion processes", Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, September.
  • Research Impact


    Dr Sarita Azad's significant contribution is towards developing statistical techniques for predicting and monitoring extreme weather events like cloudbursts in Northwest Himalayas. Her work provides pragmatic guidelines on the use of satellite estimates, designing optimized rain gauge networks, and creating high-quality gridded data in the complex mountainous terrain of the Himalayas.

    Research Interests


  • Indian summer monsoon rainfall.
  • Climate Change.
  • Data analysis.
  • Statistical methods.
  • Vulnerability maps.
  • Rainfall extremes.
  • Flood frequency analysis.

  • Station 1(Peeple Point)

    Station 2 (Mind Tree)

    Automatic weather stations at IIT Mandi are installed at two locations and are operational since last one year. Local climate data of parameters like rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed, and wind direction are available at Project sensor live graph & report .


    Kamand Live Weather Report

    Date: | Senssor Location : Peepal Point

    Date: | Senssor Location : Mind Tree School



    Selected Publications


    • Sarita Azad and Sushma Devi (2020) Tracking the spread of COVID-19 in India via social networks in the early phase of the pandemic. Journal of Travel Medicine 27(8) DOI: 10.1093/jtm/taaa130 Impact factor 39.1
    • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2022) On bivariate modeling using a novel statistical distribution with homogeneous marginals International Journal of Climatology https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7888 Impact factor 4.069
    • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2022) Alpha power exponentiated Teissier distribution with application to climate datasets Theoretical and Applied Climatology 149, 339–353 Impact factor 3.17
    • N. Poonia and Sarita Azad (2021) The spatiotemporal trajectory of COVID-19 in India – insight into past pandemics and future recommendations Current Science 121(11), 1425-1435 Impact factor 1.17
    • P. Jena and Sarita Azad (2021) Observed and projected changes in extreme drought and wet-prone regions over India using a new vulnerability index Climate Dynamics 57(9), 2595-2613 Impact factor 4.37