Mathematical Modelling is the cornerstone of weather forecasting, not just to monitor extreme natural events but also to predict solar energy potential !
Anupam Kumar, our next pathbreaker, Senior Scientist (Climate Change Impact) at the National Environmental Agency, leads research projects on food security and urban heat, contributing scientific evidence to support government decision-making.
Dr Anupam talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about his work at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at NUS, where he applied mathematical modelling and weather-prediction to forecast solar irradiance, which indicates solar power intensity at a specific moment in time.
For students, once you choose a goal, bring discipline to it. Enthusiasm helps you begin; regular effort helps you continue, including on the days when the work is less exciting.
Anupam, Your background?
I was born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. During my childhood, my father’s postings also took us to Guwahati and Bongaigaon in Assam. Growing up in different places gave me an early introduction to how varied life can be, even within one country.
Travel was a regular part of our family life. My parents, my two younger sisters, and I explored many places across India. My father would take us to temples and historical monuments, introducing us to different traditions, stories, and remarkable examples of human ingenuity.
Those journeys offered different ways of looking at the world: through culture, history, architecture, and the question of how people built extraordinary things. At the time, they were simply family trips. Looking back, they also encouraged me to observe, explore, and ask questions.
I certainly did not return from a holiday announcing that I would become a climate scientist! But curiosity was becoming part of who I was, long before I knew where it would take me.
What did you do for graduation/postgraduation?
I completed my bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, specialising in Aerodynamics, in Chennai. Aerodynamics is about how air moves around objects—for example, how it flows around an aircraft and influences its flight.
Later, I qualified through GATE, India’s national entrance examination for postgraduate engineering studies, and pursued an M.Tech at IIT Kharagpur. There, I encountered mathematical modelling of the atmosphere and oceans using high-performance computers.
That was an important discovery for me. I had begun by studying air moving around aircraft; now I was learning how to study air moving through the atmosphere. The scale had changed considerably, but my interest in understanding movement through mathematics remained.
I eventually completed a four-year PhD at the Interdisciplinary Graduate School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, studying cold surges and the physical processes behind them.
What were some of the influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional and unique career in Weather Modelling?
My career choice developed gradually. There was no single moment when I had every step worked out.
My childhood travels encouraged curiosity, and engineering gave me tools to investigate how things work. At IIT Kharagpur, atmospheric and ocean modelling brought those two elements together. I became fascinated by the possibility of using equations and computers to understand weather.
What kept me interested was that the questions were both scientifically challenging and relevant to everyday life. Weather is something everyone experiences, but understanding and predicting it requires much more than looking out of the window!
As I learned more, I wanted to go beyond producing a forecast. I wanted to understand why events happen and how that knowledge could help people make decisions. That interest gradually shaped my career.
How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career? Tell us about your career path.
My career has been less like following a fixed timetable and more like following a question that kept growing.
I began as a trainee engineer at the National Aerospace Laboratories, working on the SARAS civilian aircraft programme. I contributed to aircraft stress-analysis testing and three national technical reports. It was an opportunity to see how classroom learning becomes part of a real engineering project.
I then received an opportunity to pursue a master’s degree in race-car aerodynamic design at the University of Southampton. However, financial constraints meant that I could not take it up. I had to find another route, which led me to prepare for GATE and join IIT Kharagpur.
That change of direction introduced me to atmospheric and ocean modelling. After my M.Tech, I joined the India Meteorological Department at Mausam Bhavan in New Delhi, working with high-performance computing to support weather research and operational forecasting. My work included supporting forecasts for the Commonwealth Games and numerical weather prediction for Antarctica.
Over time, another question began to interest me: once we have a weather forecast, how can we use it to understand the risks people face?
I moved to Risk Management Solutions though mathematical modelling remained at the heart of my work, the questions were changing. At IMD, I supported weather research and operational forecasting. At RMS, my focus shifted towards what those weather conditions could mean for risk management.
More broadly, RMS develops models that help organisations understand potential losses from catastrophic events such as floods, cyclones, and earthquakes. An insurance company, for example, can use these models to estimate possible claims and prepare financially. Put simply, weather forecasting asks, “What might the weather do?” Risk modelling adds, “What could that mean for us?”
My own work focused on crop forecasting through CRAFT—the CCAFS Regional Agricultural Forecasting Toolbox) to support decision-makers in Asia, particularly in regions where data are limited. It connected my weather-modelling background with questions about agricultural production. The equations were still there, but now the questions reached into the fields where crops grow. That connection between understanding the weather and making the information useful for farmers was what made the move interesting to me.
CRAFT is a publicly accessible, open-source spatial crop-forecasting platform developed under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, in partnership with institutions including the University of Florida. For me, this work was a bridge between predicting atmospheric conditions and understanding their implications for agriculture.
Yet I still wanted to investigate the underlying science more deeply. That brought me to my PhD at NTU in Singapore.
Can you explain the problem statement of your PhD? Why did you choose Singapore? Can you explain your research?? Did you get scholarship ? What is the real world application of cold surges?
After working with weather models and their applications, I wanted to look more closely at the science behind them. My PhD at NTU focused on understanding cold surges an important type of extreme weather event in Asia. One event that drew my attention was the Great Chinese Ice Storm of 2008, which caused more than US$20 billion in direct economic losses. The difficulties in predicting such an extraordinary event highlighted gaps in understanding the mechanisms behind it. I wanted to contribute to that missing knowledge.
The questions sounded simple: how do these events develop, and what determines their intensity and duration? Finding the answers was rather less simple, right from the start. Even the definitions differed between countries. The same phenomenon, but different ways of identifying it, where should I begin? Turning those questions into answers kept me occupied for four full years! Through discussions with my thesis advisory committee, I refined my research questions, studied the physical processes behind cold surges, and developed a new index to help measure and compare them. The work led to scientific publications and, for me, marked a transition from using established methods to contributing ideas of my own.
The opportunity to pursue this research at NTU brought me to Singapore. I qualified for the university’s prestigious Research Scholarship, which provided full funding support for all four years of my PhD. Having previously been unable to take up an overseas study opportunity because of financial constraints, this support meant a great deal to me. It allowed me to concentrate on the research I had wanted to pursue.
The practical value lies in strengthening the understanding that supports forecasting and preparedness. Cold surges can bring damaging winter weather to East Asia and influence winds and rainfall farther south. My research was not a ready-made warning system, but a contribution to the science on which better predictions can be built. That connection mattered to me: the questions began in the atmosphere, but their importance reached people on the ground.
How did you get your 1st break?
My first professional break was the trainee-engineer opportunity at the National Aerospace Laboratories.
Working on the SARAS programme gave me a chance to contribute to an actual aircraft project. It also introduced me to an important part of research: documenting your work clearly so that other people can examine and use it.
The three technical reports I contributed to were an early experience of taking work beyond calculations and turning it into something others could build on. That experience became valuable in every field I entered afterwards.
After completing my PhD at NTU, I joined the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at NUS, where I applied my mathematical modelling and weather-prediction skills to forecasting solar irradiance. In simple terms, the question was simple: how much solar energy would be available in Singapore, and could we forecast it?
The application was new, but I was not starting from zero. The atmospheric model I had worked with was still part of the picture; I was simply asking it a different question!
The connection with my earlier work was important. My PhD had focused on understanding cold surges, but the skills I developed were not limited to that one weather event. They included working with models, analysing data, and investigating physical processes. At SERIS, I could bring those skills to research involving Singapore’s Energy Market Authority and contribute to solar-energy forecasting.
Looking back, the lesson for me was to see my PhD as more than a thesis topic. It was also training in how to approach unfamiliar problems. That does not make finding a job automatic, but it helps you recognise opportunities beyond the exact subject you studied. In my case, I moved from studying extreme weather events to understanding how everyday weather changes the sunlight available for solar energy a different application, but a continuation of the same curiosity.
Later, I joined NEA, where I now lead research projects on food security and urban heat.
On paper, aircraft, crops, solar energy, and urban heat may look like different subjects. For me, they are connected by the same interest: understanding complex systems and making that understanding useful.
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?
One challenge was being unable to take up the Southampton opportunity because of financial constraints. An opportunity can be exciting and still be beyond your circumstances at that moment.
I responded by looking for another way to continue my education. Preparing for GATE led me to IIT Kharagpur, where I discovered atmospheric modelling. I would not describe the financial difficulty itself as a good thing, but the alternative path opened a direction I had not previously considered.
Another challenge was learning across disciplines. Moving from aerospace engineering to weather, agriculture, and energy meant repeatedly becoming a beginner in some part of my work. My mathematical and computational skills gave me a foundation, but each field had its own questions and concepts.
A third challenge was recognising that I wanted deeper research training and then committing to a PhD. Curiosity provided the motivation, but sustained work was necessary to turn that interest into research.
These experiences taught me to distinguish between a goal and the route to it. A route may change without bringing the journey to an end.
Where do you work now? What problems do you solve?
I work at the Centre for Climate Research Singapore, within the National Environment Agency, Govt. of Singapore. I lead research projects on food security and urban heat, contributing scientific evidence to support government decision-making.
The questions we study have practical importance: how might climate affect food-security risks, and how can we better understand heat in an urban environment? My work helps develop and interpret the scientific evidence needed to address these questions.
What skills are needed for the job? How did you acquire them?
My work draws on atmospheric science, mathematical modelling, programming, and the analysis of large datasets. Clear communication and collaboration are also important: research needs to be understandable and useful to others.
I acquired these skills gradually through engineering, postgraduate study, research, and different professional roles. No single degree supplied everything I would ever need.
What is a typical day like?
A typical working day may involve analysing model results, checking whether an interpretation makes physical sense, discussing findings with colleagues and partners, or preparing a presentation or report. I have also supervised undergraduate interns and supported their learning.
What do you love about this job?
What I enjoy most is the connection between discovery and usefulness. It is satisfying to understand a scientific problem more clearly—and even more satisfying when that understanding can inform a practical decision.
How does your work benefit society?
The central aim is to make weather and climate information useful beyond the research community.
Across my career, I have contributed to operational weather forecasting, crop forecasting, solar-irradiance prediction, and research on urban heat and food security. Each application connects scientific understanding with a different kind of decision.
For example, forecasting sunlight connects atmospheric modelling with solar energy. Studying urban heat connects climate science with questions about the environments in which people live and work.
My contribution is to help provide and interpret the scientific evidence. Turning that evidence into action is a shared effort involving researchers, agencies, planners, and many other people.
Tell us about a specific, memorable piece of work that is very close to you.
My PhD research on cold surges is particularly close to me. My research examined the physical mechanisms behind these weather events.
I wanted to understand not only when these events occurred, but also how to describe their intensity and duration. As part of my research, I developed a cold surge index to help characterise those features.
What made this work meaningful was the opportunity to contribute an approach of my own to a scientific question. I was no longer only learning established methods; I was also learning how to develop and test a new one.
It strengthened my confidence as a researcher and deepened my interest in understanding the processes behind weather events—not simply identifying them in the data.
What is your advice to students, based on your experience?
Try to discover what genuinely interests you. Listen to advice, but do not choose a direction only because it sounds impressive or because everyone else seems to be choosing it.
You do not need to have your entire life planned while you are still at school. Explore subjects, ask questions, and notice what makes you want to learn more. Clarity often develops through experience.
Once you choose a goal, bring discipline to it. Enthusiasm helps you begin; regular effort helps you continue, including on the days when the work is less exciting.
At the same time, remember that effort is not the only influence on an outcome. Finances, opportunities, timing, and support also matter. Focus on what you can control, seek help when you need it, and remain open to another route.
My own journey did not follow the plan I first imagined. That does not mean planning was pointless—it means a plan should guide you, not trap you.
What are your future plans?
I would like to continue developing research that connects scientific understanding with practical questions, particularly in climate resilience, food security, and urban heat.
I also want to continue supporting students and young researchers. Having moved between disciplines myself, I value the opportunity to help others build skills and find confidence in their own questions.
The subjects I work on may continue to evolve, but the motivation remains familiar: to understand something better, contribute something useful, and keep learning. That curiosity began long before I had a career and I hope it stays with me throughout it.