Mukesh Kumar's Biography

​Mukesh Kumar is Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Alabama. He studies hydrologic processes and ways to assess risks to property, plants, and people from extremes. To this end, his research cuts across the traditional silos in the field of hydrology, and focuses on responses created by interactions between the different components of the hydrologic continuum i.e., subsurface, surface, snow, atmosphere, plants, and humans. He is co-developer of several open-source frameworks including PIHM (Pennstate Integrated Hydrologic Model), PIHMgis, FIHM, FoRM (Forest Radiation Model), BPT (Barrier Prioritization Tool), SPAC (Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Continuum Model) and DEWS (Detection of Early Warning Signal). Mukesh has personally directed more than $4.5M of funded research, published more than 65 peer-reviewed research papers and delivered >35 invited talks. His research recognitions include NSF CAREER Award, UCOWR Ph.D. Dissertation Award (2nd Prize), Outstanding Student Paper Award at AGU, UA College of Engineering's Research Excellence & Innovation Award (2024), Fellow of the Alabama Water Institute (2023), UA CCEE’s Outstanding Faculty Research and Innovation Award (2023), and two UA-CCEE's Outstanding Mid-Career Faculty Award (2021, 2019). In recognition of his outstanding contributions, he received the Mahatma Gandhi Non-resident Indian Award in 2018. Mukesh completed his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur in 2002 and Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 2009. Before joining the faculty of the University of Alabama, he was an Assistant Professor at Duke University.