UGA Geography Ph.D. Student Chintan Maniyar Receieves NASA Fellowship

UGA Geography Ph.D. student Chintan
Maniyar has been named a recipient of
NASA’s early career fellowship. The
$150,000 fellowship, known as the Future
Investigators in NASA Earth and Space
Science and Technology (FINNEST), accepts
proposals for graduate student-designed
research projects that contribute to Science
Mission Directorate’s science, technology,
and exploration goals. Maniyar and project
P.I. Deepak Mishra were one of 53 awardees
selected for their proposal, "Detection,
Driver-Response Analysis, and Forecasting of
Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Blooms in
Inland Waters Under a Changing Climate."

"The negative health consequences associated with cyanobacterial harmful algae blooms
(CyanoHABs) are expected to disproportionately impact populations that are intimately
associated with and directly dependent upon water resources and are thus more likely to
encounter CyanoHABs," said Mishra, Merle C. Prunty, Jr. Professor & associate head of the
department of geography. "Continuous monitoring and information dissemination are key to
tackling the challenge. Chintan’s proposed modeling framework will apply to a broad range
of inland waterbodies worldwide."
"The results and tools from this project will not only provide means for continuous
monitoring and early warning of CyanoHABs, but will also help understand the long-term
evolution of CyanoHABs under a changing climate and their functioning in a more localized
way for inland waterbodies," he said.

Read the full press release here!

The project aims to fuse earth observation and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to
develop an integrated model for near-real time monitoring, quantification, and forecasting
of CyanoHABs.