Interdisciplinary Assistant Professor
Teaching lead: Mathematics and Programming (Design Tripos)
PI: Collective Intelligence & Design Group
Co-director: climaTRACES Lab
Cambridge lead: Caltech-Cambridge Climate and Social Intelligence Lab
Course Director (Technical): MAUS | Director of Studies in Design: Churchill College
Fellow: Cambridge Zero and Churchill College
Visiting faculty roles: Caltech, Cambridge CST and Indian Statistical Institute
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. He is also the Cambridge lead for Caltech-Cambridge Climate and Social Intelligence 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
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eyp1rYEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
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., Bauer, J.M., Debnath, R. , Emogor, C.A., Geiger, S.M., Ghai, S., Gwozdz, W., and 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
Updated list: https://camcid.github.io/publications.html
Teaching and Supervisions
Design Tripos: Maths and Programming (Year 1) core modules
MAUS: Research Methods
EMBA - Energy and Environment Modules (CJBS)
MPP - Fundamentals of ML (POLIS/BIPP)
Lead: India Climate Literacy Program (with Cambridge Zero and Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
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 and responsible 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; Cambridge Centre for Data-driven Discovery, and Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair) and Cambridge Zero.
