*** This page was last updated in March 2024. ***

2024

• May: Doctoral research on hydroeconomic modeling was featured in a Future Farming article written by Treena Hein - Water conservation in US irrigation – the RHEO tool is now available (21 May 2024)

• March: Hemant Kumar joined the civil engineering department at IIT Roorkee as an assistant professor.  

2023

• December: Hemant Kumar graduated from North Carolina State University with a doctorate in philosophy in civil engineering. 

• October: Presented my research on Using Deficit Irrigation to Reduce Vulnerability in Food-Energy-Water Nexus at October SE CASC Science Seminar.  (Watch YouTube recording). (19 Oct 2023)

• August: Doctoral research on hydroeconomic modeling was featured in a multi-perspective Associated Press article on irrigation and agriculture written by Melina Walling -  Climate change may force more farmers and ranchers to consider irrigation — at a steep cost | AP News.

• June: A chapter of doctoral thesis on hydroeconomic modeling is published as a research article in Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033691 [Brief summary https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2023/06/12/using-deficit-irrigation-to-reduce-vulnerability-in-food-energy-water-nexus/ ] [NCSU News release New Tool Predicts Crop Yields in the Southeast https://news.ncsu.edu/2023/06/predicting-crop-yields/]

• April: Lectured on groundwater hydrology in CE383-Hydrology and Urban Water Systems as part of Mentored Teaching Fellowship (MTF) fellowship. (April 07, 2023)

• March: Attended (online) the hybrid UIUC INFEWS workshop which brought together researchers and stakeholders. This Innovations at the Nexus of FEWS (INFEWS) project resulted in development of integrated technology-environment-economics model (ITEEM) as a tool to explore system- level technological and policy solutions and assess the resilience of Corn Belt FEWS. (March 23 – 24, 2023)

• March: Oral presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Quantifying the food-energy-water nexus at regional scale: Inter-sectoral tradeoffs under hydroclimatic extremes" at Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium 2023, North Carolina State University (March 10, 2023)

• March:  Collaborative work with Dr. Vinnarasi and Dr. CT Dhanya on developing a new framework for meteorological drought indices to incorporate short- and long-term temporal dynamics in precipitation is published in Journal of Climate. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-22-0437.1/JCLI-D-22-0437.1.xml

• January: Hemant Kumar received the Mentored Teaching Fellowship (MTF) fellowship for Spring 2023 semester. This program is designed to allow graduate students in the College of Engineering to expand their teaching experience by formalizing a mentoring relationship between them and professors of their choice. 

2022

• December: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "H45Q-1597 - Quantifying the food-energy-water nexus at regional scales: Inter-sectoral tradeoffs under hydroclimatic extremes" at AGU Fall meeting 2022, Chicago, USA.

• October: Attended Strategic Planning Retreat organized by Dr. Greg Characklis from the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems (CoFiRES), at UNC’s Morehead Planetarium, October 14, 2022.

• July:  Hemant Kumar started internship with Dr. Liangzhi You in the Environment and Production Technology Division of the International Food Research Institute (IFPRI). The internship is part of the National Science Foundation award #180523.

• June: Ph.D. Preliminary Oral Exam of Hemant Kumar "The Role of Climate in the Interaction of Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus across the Coterminous US" Under the supervision of Prof. Sankar Arumugam successfully completed on June 22, 2022.

• June: Oral (in-person) presentation based on the collaborative work with Dr. Hui Wang of Tampa Bay Water and Dr. Dol Raj Chalise on developing and applying potential scenarios of changes in hydroclimatic variables for analyzing the impacts on water supply system at 2022 EWRI World Environmental & Water Resources Congress, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

• June:  Collaborative work with Dr. Albert Ruhi, Dr. Sudarshana Mukhopadhyay, Dr. Jeongwoo Hwang and Dr. Naresh Devineni on studying how does flow alteration propagate across a large, highly regulated basin is published in Earth's Future. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002490. This work was a result of Global Synthesis on Budyko Framework Working Group at USGS Powell Center, USA

• May: Attended (virtually) One-day National Seminar on Advances in Water Resources Planning and Management; May 22, 2022; IIT Madras, India

• April: Oral (virtual) presentation based on my doctoral research tilted "Food-Water-Energy System: Challenges in Modeling and Quantifying the Nexus" at ICWRER 2022 (The 9th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research), University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

• March: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Developing an integrated hydrology-economics model to simulate food-energy-water nexus" at Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium 2022, North Carolina State University

• February: Oral (online) presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Modeling FEWS nexus through Regional Hydroeconomic Optimization (RHEO) framework" at INFEWS Synthesis PI Workshop 2022 (9-11 Feb), Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. The 2022 INFEWS PI Workshop is the closing event that brings together all PIs and projects supported by the USDA-NSF INFEWS program (2015 to present). Overall, the goal of the workshop is to take a wide-angle view and do a synthesis of the overarching INFEWS research frameworks; novel data, modeling and experimental approaches; key technologies, insights; educational programs, and approaches to translate science to practitioners in communities, industry, and government. 

2021

• December: Collaborative work with Dr. Jeongwoo Hwang and Dr. Naresh Devineni on developing dynamic degree of regulation measures to quantify human climate influence for complex river networks is published in Water Resources Research. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021WR030491. [Brief summary https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2022/01/26/impact-of-dam-clusters-on-natural-flow-characteristics-of-rivers/ ]

• October: Collaborative work with Dr. Jeongwoo Hwang  about evaluation of local and cumulative impacts of dams on streamflow regimes is published in Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR029753

• September: Interviewed Dr. Naresh Devineni about his recent work on drought severity index based on water supply and demand https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2021/09/14/new-drought-severity-index-considers-water-demand-in-times-of-drought-to-reduce-water-deficit/ . It was also featured in the Oct 2021 Climate News Roundup of the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.  Interview link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC7erBulhAE&ab_channel=SECASC See other interviews in this series at https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2020-2021-fellows-science-expert-videos/ 

• April: Organized Global Change seminar Intergenerational Learning: How Children are Changing Past Generations’ Environmental Perceptions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-9TnSX3Lug&ab_channel=SECASC  Global Change Seminar Summary: Intergenerational Learning https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2021/04/19/global-change-seminar-summary-intergenerational-learning/ 

• March: Featured in "Researcher Spotlight" – Hemant Kumar https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2021/03/18/researcher-spotlight-hemant-kumar/ 

• March: Organized Global Change seminar Environmental Justice in North Carolina: Then, Now and the Future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M4PQCOobAs&ab_channel=SECASC 

• March: Oral presentation titled "Understanding the food-energy-water nexus through hydroeconomic modeling under regional development portfolios in the Flint River Basin, GA" at 2021 3-minute thesis (3MT) competition of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, NCSU. 

• March: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Understanding the food-energy-water nexus through hydroeconomic modeling under regional development portfolios in the Flint River Basin, GA" at Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium 2021, North Carolina State University (online)

• January: Attended (online) "INFEWS/T1 workshop" organized by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Prof. Ximing Cai, UIUC/CEE, coordinated the workshop on NSF Award #1739788: Developing an integrated Technology-Environment-Economic model (ITEEM) to simulate Food-Energy-Water systems In Corn Belt watersheds (19 Jan 2021).

2020

• December: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Understanding the food-energy-water nexus through hydroeconomic modeling under near-term climate change and regional development portfolios" at (online) AGU Fall meeting 2020.

• August: Attended 2020 Climate Adaptation & Resilience Immersion https://secasc.ncsu.edu/climate-adaptation-resilience-immersion/ .

• July: Received Global Change Fellowship from USGS Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center for 2020-2021 term https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2020-2021-global-change-fellows/       https://secasc.ncsu.edu/home/about/people/global-change-fellows/hemant-kumar/ .

• June: Attended 2020 annual meeting of Global Synthesis on Budyko Framework Working Group at USGS Powell Center, USA (online).

• March: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Hydroeconomic model for multiobjective optimization in Flint River Basin" at Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium 2020, North Carolina State University

2019

• December: Oral presentation based on my doctoral research titled "The role of climate on crop yield per unit area across the contiguous United States" at AGU Fall meeting 2019, San Francisco.

• December: Collaborative work with Dr. Albert Ruhi titled "How does flow alteration propagate across a large, highly-regulated basin? Dam attributes, network context, and implications for biodiversity" was presented in poster format at AGU Fall meeting 2019, Washington DC. This work was funded by USGS Powell Center, Colorado.

• June: Attended annual meeting of Global Synthesis on Budyko Framework Working Group at USGS Powell Center, Colorado, USA.

• March: Poster presentation based on my doctoral research titled "Understanding the drivers of crop yield using hierarchical models across coterminous US" at Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium 2019, North Carolina State University

2018

• December: Collaborative work with Dr. Vinnarasi and Dr. C T Dhanya was presented in poster format at AGU Fall meeting 2018, Washington DC titled "Copula-Based Non-Stationary Joint Deficit Index for Drought Characterization"

• August: Hemant Kumar was awarded Sloan Graduate Scholarship and supplemental Graduate Merit Award for pursuing Ph.D. in Civil Engineering by Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University, USA.

2017

• June: Hemant Kumar received Award of Distinction in Master of Engineering for outstanding thesis (Regional Analysis of Meteorological Droughts over India) and course work at IISc Bangalore.

2016

• December: Collaborative work with Dr. R L Gouri and Dr. V V Srinivas was presented at ISH - HYDRO 2016 International conference under the name "Reliability Assessment and Design of Bangalore Storm Water Drain Networks Using Fuzzy Network Reliability Approach".