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Charuleka Varadharajan

Research Scientist

Building 084, Room 0142

M/S 74R316C

Phone: 510-495-8890

Fax: 510-486-5686

cvaradharajan@lbl.gov

Curriculum Vitae

  • Education
  • Experience
  • Media
  • Awards
  • Professional and Community Service Activities

Biography

As a biogeochemist and environmental data scientist, Charu is interested in the water, energy and carbon nexus to understand and limit the impacts of human activities on water resources and climate. Her research has previously involved studying the fate, transport and mitigation of contaminants in groundwater; measurement and prediction of carbon fluxes in terrestrial and subsurface environments; and management, synthesis, and analysis of diverse multi-scale environmental datasets.

Her expertise spans various techniques for data collection and analysis, including laboratory experiments; x-ray synchrotron spectroscopy; sensor-based field data collection; web-based software to integrate distributed datasets in real-time; and the use of geoinformatics, statistical, and wavelet-based data processing to analyze high spatial and temporal resolution data. She has participated in data-driven scientific assessments of well stimulation (hydraulic fracturing) in California performed for federal and state agencies and was part of an expert committee advising the state of California on criteria for monitoring groundwater impacted by well stimulation.

She is currently interested in enhancing LBNL’s environmental data capabilities towards building an environmental knowledgebase, in partnership with the Computational Research Division. The knowledgebase would have several components including 1) a scalable data archive capable of hosting vastly diverse datasets, 2) data integration using a brokering approach, using the BASIN-3D framework (link coming soon), 3) data QA/QC, processing and analytics using a combination of statistical, data mining, and machine learning approaches, 4) data assimilation tools for model-data integration, and 5) interactive visualizations and narrative interfaces.

Research Interests

Environmental data science and informatics, water quality, biogeochemistry related to water-energy-carbon nexus.

Education

  • Ph.D. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA, 2009, Magnitude and Spatio-Temporal Variability of Methane Emissions from a Eutrophic Freshwater Lake
  • M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA, 2004, A Wavelet-Based System for Event Detection in Online Real-Time Sensor Data
  • Bachelor of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras - Chennai, India, 2001, Integrated Coastal Zone Management using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Experience

  • Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2018-Present
  • Project Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2014-2018
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2010-2014
  • Graduate Student, Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering, MIT - Cambridge, MA, 2004-2009
  • Teaching Assistant, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT - Cambridge, MA, 2005-2008
  • Research Assistant, Center for Educational Computing and Initiatives, MIT - Cambridge, MA, 2001-2005
  • Undergraduate Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, IIT Madras - Chennai, India, 2000-2001

Media

  • News article: Berkeley Lab-Developed Digital Library is a Game Changer for Environmental Research (Link)
  • News article: To Pump or Not to Pump: New Tool Will Help Water Managers Make Smarter Decisions (Link)

Awards

  • Berkeley Lab Director’s Award for Exceptional Early Career Scientific Achievement (2020, Link)
  • DOE Early Career Research Award (news article), 2019
  • Senior Fellow at Berkeley Institute of Data Sciences, 2016
  • Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Spot Awards, LBNL, 2018; 2016; 2014; 2011
  • MIT Linden Earth System Fellow, 2008-2009
  • National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, 2007
  • Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant, 2007
  • MIT Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability, 2005-2006
  • MIT Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Trond Kaalstad Award for leadership, community building and academic excellence, 2005
  • Institute Blues for exceptional extra-curricular and organizational abilities, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, 2001
  • National Talent Search Award for academic excellence, National Council of Educational Research & Training, Government of India, 1995

Professional and Community Service Activities

  • Co-Chair, Data Management, DOE Earth System Science Cyberinfrastructure Working Group (2016-2020)
  • Member of Science Advisory Committee for SLAC Groundwater Quality SBR SFA (2019-current)
  • Member of Science Advisory Board for the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC; 2019-current)
  • Member of LBNL Data Policy Working Group and Scientific IT Advisory Board (2018-current)
  • Technical committee member for US interagency Integrated Hydroterrestrial Modeling Workshop (Sep 2019)
  • Organizing member and co-author of report for “Open and Coordinated Watershed science” DOE SBR workshop (Jan 2019)
  • Participated in two 2017 CCST-DWR workshops for AB1755 implementation at UC Berkeley, and leading efforts to coordinate with the DWR on building testbeds for open water data. Organizer of “Intro to Jupyter for Water Data Analysis” as LBNL representative to the California Safe Drinking Water Challenge in July 2018 (Link)
  • Participated in multiple LBNL workshops as an environmental data expert including LBNL AI Townhall (2019) EESA’s ETA’s Energy probe collective workshop for intelligence in Energy technologies (2019), EESA-ETA resilience workshop (2018), EESA’s Ecosense workshop (2017), EESA-BIDS data science workshop (2017)
  • Participated in developing EESA Strategic Plan for Future Water and Sustainable Earth Grand Challenges (2016)
  • Participated in EESA SupEr: Supervisor Enrichment program and leadership training (Summer 2019)
  • Mickey Leland Energy Fellow (MLEF) and EESA mentor
  • Session Chair, “Cyberinfrastructure for field work: data standards, computer applications, instrumentation and best practices,” 2014 AGU Fall Meeting
  • Technical Coordinator, EPA/LBNL CO2 Geologic Sequestration & Water Resources Workshop, Berkeley, Jun 2011. Organized the workshop, which included determining workshop themes and participants, coordinating logistics and writing a report for the EPA
  • Lead, Sustainable Systems SFA Junior Staff Discussion Group, Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (2010-2012)
  • Reviewer for various journals including JGR Biogeosciences, Water Resources Research, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, Chemical Geology, Environmental Pollution, PLOS One, STOTEN, IEEE Access, DOE-SBIR grants
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