Abhishek Kar
Abhishek is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Environmental Health Sciences department at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He was previously a Research Fellow at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), an Indian think-tank. He is current an ISEP (Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy) Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and was selected in the 2018 Young Scientists Summer Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
He has obtained his doctorate in Resources, Environment and Sustainability from the University of British Columbia. Over the last twelve years, his multi-disciplinary research experience (and published work) spans aerosols, human behavior, and policy analysis related to household air pollution in specific and energy access in general. His doctoral dissertation entailed application of classical behavior change theories in conjunction with large consumer behavior datasets to better understand clean cooking energy transitions.
His research has appeared in scholarly journals such as Nature Energy (featured on the cover of September 2019 issue), Environmental Science and Technology, and Energy Research and Social Science. His opinion pieces have been published in different platforms such as Nature Human Behaviour, Global News Canada, Hindustan Times, etc. His research findings have been shared widely on social media, including by the Prime Minister of India, and covered at the front page of major Indian newspapers. He has embarked upon the journey of writing a book on India’s Ujjwala program to promote cooking gas.