Degree(s)

B.Tech. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering (Sharda University), M.Tech. in Technology & Development (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay), MPhil. in Engineering for Sustainable Development (University of Cambridge), Ph.D. – Gates Scholar (University of Cambridge)

Research interests

I work at the intersection of data science, design thinking and public policy to support sustainability transition and climate action using the lens of energy, environment, and climate justice. I am interested in enabling people-led decision-making at the centre of net-zero transition by countering misinformation by developing computational social science methodologies using natural language processing (NLP), ML and AI. I engage actively with industry and governmental agencies for research collaborations and translation, including Twitter Inc, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Environmental Program and the House of Commons – UK Government. An updated list of my projects can be found here: https://www.ramitdebnath.org/research-projects

Teaching Interests

I engage actively in interdisciplinary teaching at both undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels. For UG courses, I teach environmental design (Architecture), sustainable development and climate change (Engineering). For PG courses, I teach research methods (MAUS-Architecture), policy analysis (MPP-POLIS and MSt-CISL), sustainability transitions (MPhil-ESD, Engineering) and technology policy (MPhil-TP, CJBS). I also teach at the University of Oxford (MSc, Energy and Society), Carnegie Mellon University (Engineering and Public Policy Program) and the University of Wollongong (Business and Economics Program).

I supervise UG and PG candidates across multiple departments, including Material Science and Metallurgy, Engineering, Architecture and AI and Ethics. Previously, I have taught experiential learning-based courses like Technology and Development Laboratory (IIT Bombay) and Principles of Urban Science (IIT Bombay).

Awards and prizes

Inaugural Cambridge Zero Fellowship (2022-24)

The Alan Turing Institute Postdoctoral Enrichment Award (2022-23)

Sustainability Fellowship, Churchill College (2022-24)

Winter Fellowship, Michigan Conservative Energy Forum (2020)

Best presentation award, ASEAN Emerging Research Conference (2019)

Best poster award, Gates Day of Research (2019)

Santander Mobility International Award (2018)

Gates-Cambridge Scholarship (2018-21)

Commonwealth Shared Scholarship (2017-18)

ETH Zurich Summer Scholarship (2016)

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev International Summer Scholarship (2015)

GATE Scholarship, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India (2014)

Selected Publications

A complete list can be found here: https://www.ramitdebnath.org/publications

Debnath, R., Bardhan, R., Shah, D.U., Mohaddes, K., Ramage, M.H., Alvarez, R.Michael and Sovacool, B (2022) Social media enables people-centric climate action in the hard-to-decarbonise building sector, Scientific Reports, Nature (in press)

Debnath, R., Ebanks, D., Mohaddes, K., Roulet, T and Alvarez, R.Michael (2022) Highly-polluting fossil fuel firms reframe climate communication on social media, Scientific Reports, Nature (in Press)

Debnath, R., Bardhan, R., Misra, A., Hong, T., Vida, R., Ramage, M.H. (2022) Lockdown impacts on residential electricity demand in India: A data-driven and non-intrusive load monitoring study using Gaussian mixture models. Energy Policy, Elsevier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112886

Debnath, R., Bardhan, R., Reiner, D. M., and Miller, JR (2021) Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental dimensions of electric vehicle adoption in the United States: A social-media interaction analysis. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111707

Muza, O and Debnath, R. (2021) Disruptive innovation for inclusive renewable policy in sub-Saharan Africa: A social shaping of technology analysis of appliance uptake in Rwanda. Renewable Energy, Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.12.091

Debnath R. and Bardhan R., (2020) India nudges to contain COVID-19 pandemic: a reactive public policy analysis using machine-learning based topic modelling, PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238972

Debnath, R., Darby, S., Bardhan, R., Mohaddes, K., & Sunikka-Blank, M. (2020). Grounded reality meets machine learning: A deep-narrative analysis framework for energy policy research. Energy Research & Social Science, Elsevier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101704

Other interests

Street photography