Dr. Rahul Kumar, Research Scientist
Dr. Rahul Kumar is a Research Scientist at the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology. Before joining our Center, he worked as a fellow at the Centre of Excellence on Molecular Materials and Functions, at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. Dr. Kumar earned his master’s degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Dhanbad, India, in 2013 and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2020. Dr. Kumar has completed two years of postdoctoral training at the Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering at Arizona State University.
Dr. Kumar's research interests lie broadly in Environmental Chemistry and Environmental Health. His current research lies in Environmental Health, particularly wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), a rapidly emerging public health monitoring tool to identify public health threats and understand community health trajectories. His Ph.D. thesis focused on understanding emerging contaminants' occurrence and fate in the environment and developing innovative solutions to treat wastewater. Apart from academic research, he has more than two years of experience in environmental consulting.
He has received prestigious scholarships and awards from organizations, including the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand; and the American Chemical Society, USA. He is also an active member of scientific organizations, including the American Chemical Society, and a Global Burden of Disease Collaborator at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, USA.