Directors’ Profile

Dr. Kalachand Sain, Director , WIHG

Dr. Kalachand Sain, FNA, FASc, FNASc, FTAS, FAPAS
J.C. Bose Fellow, GoI

Director, Wadia Institute Of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun.

http://scholar.google.co.in/citations?hl=en&user=9nhStVcAAAAJ

Kalachand Sain obtained his M.Sc. (Tech) in App. Geophysics from IIT-ISM, Dhanbad and Ph.D. in Active Seismology from CSIR-NGRI (Osmania University), Hyderabad. He visited Cambridge University (UK) and Rice University (USA) as a post-doctoral Fellow, and USGS (USA) as a Visiting Scientist. He is the Director at Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology – An AI of DST, GoI. Earlier, he was the Chief Scientist & Head of Seismic Group at CSIR-NGRI. He is also an honorary Outstanding Professor at AcSIR, Ghaziabad.
Widely travelled Geo-scientist and visited 20 countries and made collaborations with 10 international organizations/universities. He delivered more than 104 lectures as plenary, invited and keynote speaker at different occasions on advanced geophysical techniques: seismic tomography, AVO modeling, attribute characterisation, rock physics; AI/ML; geo-tectonics, seismo-tectonics; energy perspectives in difficult terrains: thrust-fold belt of Himalaya, sub-volcanics and deep oceans; unconventional energy resources: gas-hydrates and geothermal; climate change, assessment and mitigation of geo-hazards due to earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, flash floods; early warnings, etc. He organised 22 sessions in international/national forum, chaired 40 sessions, conducted short courses, handled many projects of National importance. He has published 185 SCI articles; 138 Non-SCI articles/documents; 5 Authored books; 7 Edited volumes; Supervision of 13 Ph.D. and 70 Master dissertations. He is a Fellow of all three Indian Science Academies: INSA (New Delhi), IAS (Bangalore), NASI (Allahabad), as well as Fellow of AP Akademi of Sciences (Hyderabad) and Telangana Academy of Sciences (Hyderabad); Recipient of J.C. Bose National Fellowship of SERB-DST, National Merit Scholarship by Min. of Education, Raman Research Fellowship of CSIR and BOYSCAST Research Fellowship of DST.
Honored with Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT-ISM, AP Scientist Award, National Geoscience Award by MoES, National Mineral Award by MoM, YS Award of CSIR, Krishnan Medal and Decennial Award of IGU. He is the Vice President of IGU; Secretary General of FIGA; Member of National Committees of SERB-DST, CSIR, MoES, DST, MoE, MoEFCC, Science Academies, RACs/GBs of many National Institutes and Universities.
Some of his remarkable achievements are:

  • Established Gas Hydrates Research Center with world-class facilities at CSIR-NGRI, Hyderabad
  • Developed AI-based approaches for automatic delineation of subsurface features from surface data
  • Established AI Centre of Excellence at WIHG, Dehradun for AI/ML application to geosciences data
  • Developed 2D full-waveform tomography of wide-angle seismic data, first time in India
  • Characterized and evaluated gas-hydrates in KG, Mahanadi and Andaman basins validated by drilling
  • Estimated critical parameters – pre-requisite for development of gas-hydrates production technology
  • Delineated high-resolution crustal structures over several geo-tectonic provinces of India
  • Led scientific cruises for (i) heat flow, (ii) gas-hydrates & (iii) imaging subduction plate geometries
  • Identified seismic precursors from 2021 ice-rock avalanche leading to develop early warning system
  • Working on how to convert Geothermal Green Energy into Electrical Energy in UK Himalaya
  • Demonstrated subsurface hydrological imbalance to the recent land sliding (2023) at Joshimath
  • Leading a Project on “Characterization and Assessment of surface and subsurface Processes in Himalaya for Seismogenesis, Geodynamics, Geo-hazards, climate-tectonics, and Natural resources

For complete CV click here.