University Assistant Professor, PhD (Cantab, Gates Scholar)
Course leader: Y1 Design Tripos Mathematics and Computing
Principal Investigator: camcid.github.io (Collective Intelligence & Design Group)
Co-director: Cambridge ClimaTRACES Lab (https://climatraces.org/)
Course Director: MAUS | Director of Studies in Design: Churchill College
Fellow: Cambridge Zero, Churchill College, Royal Statistical Society, and Florence School of Regulation Global
Visiting academic: Caltech and Cambridge CST
Biography
Dr Ramit Debnath is a university assistant professor and an academic director at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Churchill College and Cambridge Zero and has visiting roles at Caltech and Florence School of Regulation Global. Ramit sits on the steering committee of Cambridge's Centre for Human-Inspired AI (CHIA) and Centre for Climate Repair (CCR). Ramit leads the Collective Intelligence & Design Group, and co-directs the Cambridge ClimaTRACES Lab.
With a background in electrical engineering and computational social sciences, Ramit designs collective intelligence approaches to provide a data-driven, complex system-level understanding of barriers to climate action in the Anthropocene, their interactions, and how these translate to leverage points for policy and behavioural interventions at scale.
Previously, Dr Debnath has held positions at Caltech, Cambridge Computer Laboratory, UN Environment Program, International Energy Agency, Stanford University and IIT Bombay. Ramit had received his MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar.
Research
My overarching objectives are to develop collective intelligence approaches using computational social science, machine learning and AI to provide a complex system-level understanding of barriers to climate action in the Anthropocene, their interactions, and how these translate to leverage points for policy and behavioural interventions. My research aims to incorporate the above data to design people-centric and just climate and sustainability action pathways.
Active research projects: https://camcid.github.io/projects.html
Publications
Full list: https://camcid.github.io/publications.html or https://climatraces.org/publications
Lin, YT., Bardhan, R., Debnath, R., and Mukherjee, B. (2024). Are heatwaves more deadly for women?, Significance Magazine, Royal Statistical Society,https://significancemagazine.com/long-read-are-heatwaves-more-deadly-for-women/
Magistro, B., Abramson, C., Ebanks, D., Debnath, R., and Alvarez, R.M. (2024). Identifying American climate change free riders and motivating sustainable behavior, Scientific Reports, Nature Portfolio https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-57042-w
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 Portfolio https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00086-x
Müller-Hansen, F., Repke, T., Baum, C.M., Brutschin, E., Callaghan, M.W., Debnath, R., Lamb, W.L., Low, S., Lück, S., Roberts, C., Sovacool, B.K., Minx, J.C. (2023). Attention, sentiments and emotions towards emerging climate technologies on Twitter, Global Environmental Change https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102765
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 Portfolio. 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., Bardhan, R., and Bell, M.L., (2023) Lethal heatwaves are challenging India’s sustainable development, PLOS Climate. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000156
Debnath, R., Reiner, D. M., Sovacool, B. K., Müller-Hansen, F., Repke, T., Alvarez, R. M., & Fitzgerald, S. D. (2023). Conspiracy spillovers and geoengineering. iScience, Cell Press, 106166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106166
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
Debnath, R., Bardhan, R., Shah, D.U., Mohaddes, K., Ramage, M.H., Alvarez, RM., and Sovacool, BK (2022) Social media enables people-centric climate action in the hard-to-decarbonise building sector. Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-23624-9
Full list: https://camcid.github.io/publications.html
Teaching and Supervisions
Design Tripos: Maths and Programming core modules
Lead: India Climate Literacy Program (with Cambridge Zero and Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
EMBA - Energy and Environment Modules (CJBS)
MPP - Fundamentals of ML (POLIS/BIPP)
Part-II B Environmental Design (Architecture)
Research Methods (MAUS)
MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development
MSc Energy and Society (ECI, University of Oxford)
BSc/MSc Energy Systems (Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University)
I welcome research applications in the following domains:
- Computational Social Science
- Environmental Data Science
- Climate action and tipping points
- Design thinking and just transition
- Human-in-the-loop AI design
More about my group here: https://camcid.github.io
Other Professional Activities
Fellow: Royal Statistical Society
Professional Member - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Member - EDITS, IIASA
Departmental level - Chair of IT Committee; Website Liaison officer; Director of MAUS; Y3 dissertation coordinator, Feedback coordinator, Y2 Pecha Kucha coordinator, Graduate Committee, DOS Committee, Outreach Committee, PhD Conference Chair, PhD 9th term reviewer.
University level - Steering committee member (Centre for Human-Inspired AI) and Cambridge Zero.
