Director

Kalachand Sain obtained M.Sc. (Tech) in App. Geophysics from IIT-ISM, Dhanbad, and Ph.D. in Active Seismology from CSIR-NGRI and Osmania University, Hyderabad in 1995. He visited Cambridge University (UK) and Rice University (USA) as post-doctoral Fellow, and USGS (USA) as Visiting Scientist – all before 2001. He is Director at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), Dehradun – An Autonomous Institute of Dept. of Sci. & Tech. (DST), Govt. of India. He held additional charge as Director of Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleo Sciences – another DST-institute, Lucknow for a small span till a new director joined. Earlier, he was Chief Scientist & Head of Seismic Group at CSIR-NGRI. He is an honorary Outstanding Professor at Academy of Scientific & Industrial Research, Ghaziabad.
Statement of Work: His expertise includes AI/ML, seismic tomography, attribute characterization, rock physics, and advanced processing of geoscientific data. His research covers climate change; glaciers dynamics & glaciers lakes; geo-hazards due to earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, flash floods; early warnings; seismotectonics, geodynamics, basin evolution; conventional hydrocarbons, non-conventional gas-hydrates and geothermal energy resources; and sub-volcanic imaging. He visited 20 countries to present his scientific outcome, completed 10 international collaborations, pursued joint studies with many Indian organizations, delivered over 100 plenary/invited talks (available in Websites/YouTube). He chaired 40 sessions, organised 22 sessions in international/national forums, conducted short courses on advanced topics/methodologies, handled projects worth of INR 62 crores, and procured INR 160 crores worth industry-standard data for research. All these have resulted into 205 SCI articles with more than 4520 total citations and 25 papers having more than 50 citations; 5 Authored Books; 7 Edited Volumes; 26 Book Chapters;100 Non-SCI Articles/Documents; 2 Patents; Section Editor for the ‘Encyclopaedia of Solid Earth Geophysics’ by Springer; Supervision of 15 Ph.Ds., and Mentoring of 70 Master-dissertations.
Recognition: He is a Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (Delhi), Indian Academy of Sciences (Bangalore), National Academy of Science in India (Allahabad), Andhra Pradesh (AP) Akademi of Sciences (Hyderabad) and Telangana Academy of Sciences (Hyderabad). He is a recipient of J.C. Bose National Fellowship of Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB-DST), National Merit Scholarship by Min. of Education (MoE), Raman Fellowship of CSIR, and BOYSCAST Fellowship of DST.
He is honoured with Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT-ISM, AP Scientist Award, National Award of Excellence in Geosciences by Min. of Earth Sciences (MoES), National Mineral Award by Min. of Mines, Young Scientist Award by CSIR, Krishnan Gold Medal and Decennial Award by Indian Geophysical Union (IGU). He is Vice President of IGU; Secretary General of Federation of Indian Geosciences Association; Chairman/Core Member of National Committees of DST, SERB, CSIR, MoES, MoE, Min. of Env. Forest and Climate Change, Science Academies, and Research Councils / Governing Bodies / Advisory Boards of National Organizations.
Main Scientific Attainment:

• Demonstrated subsurface hydrological imbalance to the causes of land sliding at Joshimath (2023)
• Identified seismic precursors to 2021 Chamoli ice-rock avalanche that led to development of warning system
• Established AI Centre of Excellence (2022) at WIHG, Dehradun for application to geosciences data
• Provided scientific accounts of flash floods/snow avalanches (2022-23) in UK, HP, J&K Himalaya
• Long-term monitoring (2019-) of Gongotri glacier and Bhilangana lake outburst in Bhagirathi basin.
• Explained recent seismicity in the Delhi-NCR based on Magneto Telluric study (2023)
• Developed AI-based new tools (2022) for auto-delineation of subsurface 3D features from surface data
• Published an Authored Book (2022) on Meta-attributes: Artificial Networking, first of its kind
• Published an Authored Book (2023) on ‘Tomography of Wide-angle Seismic Data’, first time in India
• Published an Edited Volume (2022) projecting hydrocarbon and renewable energy scenario in India
• Mapped geothermal resources in UK Himalaya (2020), and pursuing to convert them into green electricity
• Established Gas Hydrate Research Center (2008) with world-class facilities at CSIR-NGRI-Hyderabad
• Characterized and evaluated gas-hydrate (1998 -) in KG, Mahanadi and Andaman basins, validated by drilling
• Estimated critical parameters (2010 -) pre-requisite for development of gas-hydrates production technology
• Delineated high-resolution crustal structures (2000-) over Indian provinces (onshore, offshore and Himalaya)
• Led cruises for (i) heat flow (2007), (ii) gas-hydrates (2010), & (iii) imaging subduction plate geometries (2017)
• Leading a Project (2019-2024) on “Characterization and Assessment of surface and subsurface Processes in Himalaya for Seismogenesis, Geodynamics, Geo-hazards, Climate-tectonics, and Natural resources 

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