skip to content
Home

Department of Architecture

 

Dr Ramit Debnath

University Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Social Design

Teaching lead: Mathematics and Programming (Design Tripos)

Director: Collective Intelligence & Design Group (CAMCID.pdf)

Director: climaTRACES Lab at CRASSH

Course Director: MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies | Director of Studies in Design: Churchill College

Fellow: Cambridge Zero and Churchill College

Visiting academic: Caltech and Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata

Socio-technical design
Computational social sciences
Human-in-the-loop AI
Environmental data science
Climate action
Urban systems

Biography

Dr Ramit Debnath is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Social Design, and an Academic Director at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Churchill College and Cambridge Zero and has visiting roles at the Caltech and the lndian Statistical Institute. Ramit sits on the steering committee of Cambridge's Centre for Human-Inspired AI (CHIA), Centre for Data-driven Discovery (C2D3) and Centre for Climate Repair (CCR). Ramit is the Director of the Collective Intelligence & Design Group, and the climaTRACES Lab based at CRASSH. He is also the Cambridge lead for Caltech-Cambridge Climate and Social Intelligence Lab. 

His interdisciplinary research integrates engineering and computational social sciences with systems thinking, socio-technical design, and behavioral interventions to address barriers to climate action. He focuses on how individual behaviors influence collective decision-making dynamics and explores the potential of emergent AI to replicate these mechanisms to solve global challenges.

A Gates Scholar, Dr. Debnath earned his MPhil and PhD at Cambridge and has held positions at Caltech, the Indian Statistical Institute, the International Energy Agency, IIT Bombay, and Stanford University.

Research

Computational social sciences, climate action, socio-technical design, responsible AI design, social decision-making 

Publications

Key publications: 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eyp1rYEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Seshadri, A., Gambhir, A., and Debnath, R. (2025). Navigating Systemic Risks in Low-Carbon Energy Transitions in an Era of Global Polycrisis. Global Sustainability , Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2025.7

Amazeen, M. A., Sovacool, B. K., Krishna, A., Debnath, R., & Wells, C. (2025). The “Future of Energy”? Building resilience to ExxonMobil’s disinformation through disclosures and inoculation. npj Climate Action, Nature 4(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00209-6 

Cologna, V et al. (2025) Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries. Nature Human Behaviour, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5

van Daalen, K.R., (...), Debnath, R. , (...), Lowe, R., (2024), Bridging the gender, climate, and health gap: the road to COP29 . The Lancet Planetary Health, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00270-5

Debnath, R., (2024). Communicating my value . Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Vol 385, Issue 6710. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ziylh46

Nielsen, K.S., (...), Debnath, R. , (...), Hahnel, U.J.J., (2024), Underestimation of personal carbon footprint inequality in four diverse countries . Nature Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02130-y

Debnath, R., Ebanks, D., Roulet, T., Mohaddes, K. and Alvarez, R.M. (2023). Do fossil fuel firms reframe online climate and sustainability communication? A data-driven analysis. npj Climate Action, Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00086-x 

Debnath, R., Creutzig, F., Sovacool, B.K., and Shuckburgh, E. (2023). Harnessing human and machine intelligence for planetary-level climate action. npj Climate Action, Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00056-3 

Bardhan, R., Debnath, R., and Mukherjee, B. (2023). Factor in gender to beat the heat in impoverished settlements. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02632-3

Debnath, R., van der Linden, S., Sovacool, BK, and Alvarez, RM (2023) Facilitating system-level behavioral climate action using computational social science. Nature Human Behaviour.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01527-7 

Other publications: 

https://www.collectivedesign.group.cam.ac.uk/publications.html 

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching: 

Course leader: Paper 1.5 Math and Programming (Year 1) Design Tripos

MAUS: Research Methods

MPP - Fundamentals of ML for public policy (POLIS/BIPP)

Research supervision: 

Check out here: https://www.collectivedesign.group.cam.ac.uk/ 

Other Professional Activities

Fellow: Royal Statistical Society

Professional Member - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Member - EDITS, IIASA

Departmental level - Chair of IT Committee; Degree Committee

University level - Steering committee member (Centre for Human-Inspired AI; Cambridge Centre for Data-driven Discovery, and Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair) and Cambridge Zero.

Subject: 
Design Tripos (MDes)
University Assistant Professor
Course Director, MAUS
DoS in Design, Churchill College
PI: Collective Intelligence & Design Group

Contact us

 

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge