Dr. Sushil Kumar Himanshu is an Assistant Professor of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand. He obtained his M.Tech in Hydrology and PhD in Water Resources Development and Management from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and conducted postdoctoral research at Texas A&M University. Dr. Himanshu’s research focuses on the applications of generative AI, remote sensing, and modeling applications for climate-smart water management. His research has been funded by ADB, World Bank, UN-FAO, USDA, and other agencies to support agricultural and aquacultural sustainability, food security, and water security. He is a co-editor of the Elsevier book Advances in Remediation Techniques for Polluted Soils and Groundwater. Dr. Hemendra Kumar is a precision agriculture faculty at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Maryland College Park. His extensive experience and international exposure have profoundly influenced his innovative approaches to precision agricultural research and advanced irrigation water management. Dr. Kumar's work focuses on optimizing irrigation timing and thresholds through data collected from fields. His innovative methods include optimizing variable rate irrigation scheduling based on management zones. His research spans precision water management, smart agricultural technologies, climate-smart irrigation management, soil moisture optimization, agricultural water management, digital agriculture, hydrology, water quality, and surface and subsurface hydrologic modeling. Central to his work is the utilization of sensors, technologies, and data-driven artificial intelligence and machine learning methodologies to enhance water management in agriculture, including precision irrigation and drainage water management. Dr. Pankaj Kumar Gupta is a Ramanujan fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Delhi, India and post-doctoral fellow in the faculty of environment, University of Waterloo, Canada. His current research focuses on investigating the behavior of pollutants in peatlands (Canada) and mineral aquifers (India) under dynamically fluctuating groundwater table conditions. Majority of his works focus on two areas: (1) understanding the occurrence of bio-geo-chemical interactions when pollutants migrate into groundwater systems; and (2) developing remediation strategies. Dr. Gupta hsa in-depth experience in incorporating novel technologies to map soil-water systems in more than 30sites in India. He is passionate about interdisciplinary research and teaching to understand multi-scale interactions between different components of the subsurface environment, especially the soil- groundwater-pollutant-microbes system.
