News and Events

10/08/2024 Our book chapter (Link here) titled “Soil Moisture Remote Sensing: Satellite Retrieval, Geophysical Controls, and Applications” has been published in Elsevier’s Reference Collection on Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences.

This chapter provides a detailed examination of the evolution of satellite-based soil moisture sensing technologies, discussing retrieval algorithms and their challenges, geophysical controls across multiple spatial and temporal scales, and approaches to field calibration and validation. It also highlights several societal applications enabled by these advancements. Particularly useful for introducing students to the field of soil hydrology.

10/01/2024 One of our scientific publications, written by Leah Kocian and Dr. Binayak P. Mohanty, in honor of Dr. Van Genuchten, was recently featured in CSA News (Link here)! 🌟 Check out the article for insights into characterizing effective preferential flow and the impact of this work in advancing water quality management.

07/31/2024 Leah Kocian and her undergraduate student, Brandon Yong, at the Research for Undergraduates Poster Presentation Symposium at Texas A&M University. Over the summer, Brandon diligently analyzed over 200 samples and conducted data analysis under Leah’s guidance to investigate the impacts of urbanization on the carbon content of urban gardens. This work addresses critical aspects of carbon sequestration capabilities and impacts on contaminant transport in urban garden soils, contributing valuable insights to our larger project.

                    

04/18/2024 Congratulations to Debasish Mishra for winning first position and best presentation design award in the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS) Sea Level Rise Data Science Challenge undergraduate division. Read more about it here.

04/17/2024 Congratulations to Leah Kocian for winning the Montgomery Award in recognition of making major contributions to the academic and professional opportunities, and quality of life of their fellow graduate and professional students at Texas A&M.

04/13/2024 Debasish Mishra received the 2024 Bill and Rita Stout International Graduate Student Award. Congratulations Debasish!

12/10/2023 Next week VZRG will be at AGU 2023. Stop by to learn more about the exciting research taking place in our group!


12/01/2023 Congratulations to Debasish Mishra for being selected as one of the eight 2023 Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) fellows under the Soil Ontology and Informatics Cluster!


08/22/2023 Congratulations to our newest doctor, Vinit Sehgal! Dr. Sehgal works on soil physics at the remote sensing footprint scale looking at emergent properties and their applications. He will be joining Louisiana State University as an Assistant Professor of Soil Hydrology/Physics where his lab will focus on studying and modeling multiscale soil water-carbon-energy dynamics using remote sensing. Congratulations, Vinit! We are so proud of you!!


03/15/2023 Dr. Binayak Mohanty received the Distinguished Award for Research from the Academy of Former Students (AFS). Congratulations, Dr. Mohanty!


01/11/2023 Dr. Binayak Mohanty was named Texas A&M AgriLife Research Senior Faculty Fellow. Congratulations, Dr. Mohanty. More information here.


11/10/2022 Congratulations to Debasish for winning the People’s Choice Award for the best research presentation at the University level 3MT competition!


06/17/2022 Vinit Sehgal and Debasish Mishra volunteered in NASA’s SMAPVEX 2022 field campaign held in Millbrook, NY, from July 9th to Aug 2nd. The campaign aims at improving soil moisture retrieval algorithms for forested and densely vegetated areas.


06/17/2022 Congratulations to Vinit Sehgal for receiving the Dissertation Fellowship from the Graduate and Professional School.

Congratulations Vinit!


06/10/2022 Congratulations to our newly minted doctor, Minki Hong! Dr. Hong works on representing dynamic hydraulic linkages between streams and aquifers at catchment scales in Earth-system/Land-surface models.


05/28/2022 Congratulations to Vinit Sehgal for receiving the Data Science Ambassador Scholarship from the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science awarded to the champion for Data Science literacy within our department.

Congratulations Vinit!


05/15/2022 Congratulations to Vinit Sehgal for receiving the Class of 2017 Endowed Aggie Ring Scholarship in the amount of $1000 for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Congratulations Vinit!


05/03/2022 Congratulations to Deanroy Mbabazi for receiving the Outstanding Ph.D. award from the Texas Alpha Chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta. Gamma Sigma Delta is the Honor Society of Agriculture and only inducts students at the very top of their classes.

Congratulations Dean!


05/02/2022 Congratulations to VZRG students for receiving the prestigious Kirkham Travel Conference Award in South Africa as part of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) through the Agronomic Science Foundation’s Lena and Maria van der Ploeg Fund and the Kirkham Fund.

  • Dhruva Kathuria
  • Deanroy Mbabazi
  • Vinit Sehgal

Congratulations to you all!


07/26/2021 Congratulations to Vinit Sehgal on being awarded the Valeen Silvy Fellowship for the year 2021-2022 by the Water Management and Hydrological Science Program!


06/07/2021 We congratulate the newest Doctor in town, Dr. Dhruva Kathuria, on successfully defending his thesis, “Multiscale spatio-temporal big data fusion of hydrological variables from point to satellite footprint scales“.karhuria_zoom

Dr. Kathuria will be joining the USDA-ARS lab at UC Davis as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Many congratulations and best wishes!


05/21/2020 VZRG students named 2020 BAEN Grad-Award winners

  • Robert E Stewart Graduate Excellence Award – Vinit Sehgal
  • Bill and Rita Stout International Graduate Student Achievement Award – Minki Hong

Congratulations to both!


04/07/2020 Minki Hong received USGS graduate student research grant from the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI)  to study the Impact of climatic extremes on net subsurface discharge considering hydrologic linkage among vadose zone-unconfined aquifer-stream in Rio Grande Basin. Congratulations Minki!


04/10/2019 The Texas Water Observatory Leadership meeting was concluded with student presentations from diverse topics ranging from hydrology, remote sensing, near-surface geophysics, soil bio-geo-chemistry ecohydrology, and numerical modeling.


08/01/2018 Nandita Gaur joined the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at the University of Georgia as Assistant Professor. Many congratulations!


04/20/2018 Neelam Maheshwari successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis. She will soon be joining NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a Research Scientist. Big congratulation!!!

neelam


03/4/2018 Vinit Sehgal bagged the first place in the student poster competition at the 2018 Water Daze event organized by the Water Management and Hydrological Science Program at TAMU. Congratulation!


02/4/2018 Deanroy Mbabazi received the 2018 Bill and Rita Stout International Graduate Student Award. Congratulations Deanroy!


02/4/2018 Congratulation to Dr. Nandita Gaur for being honored with the 2018 BAEN Research Excellence Award (research staff).


09/2/2018 Minki Hong was selected for the National Water Center Innovators Program Summer Institute at the National Water Center organized by CUAHSI. Congratulations Minki! 


12/1/2017 Dr. Binayak P. Mohanty was elected Fellow for American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)-Section on Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences. Big Congratulations! Click here website 1 and website 2 for this great news.


10/17/2017 Zhenlei Yang finished his dissertation defense and will be conferred Ph.D. degree in Fall 2017 from Texas A&M University. Congratulations!


04/08/2017 Maheshwari Neelam has been conferred the Bill A. and Rita L. Stout International Graduate Student Achievement Award, Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department, Texas A&M University, 2017. Congratulations!


06/02/2016 Jonggun Kim finished his dissertation defense and will be conferred PhD degree in Summer 2016 from Texas A&M University. Congratulations!


03/07/2016 Samagra Rana finished his thesis defense and will be conferred Master degree in Spring 2016 from Texas A&M University. Congratulations!


10/15/2015 Nandita Gaur finished her dissertation defense and will be conferred PhD degree in Fall 2015 from Texas A&M University. Dr. Gaur joined VZRG as Postdoc Fellow. Congratulations!


09/25/2015 Texas A&M Research Development Fund proposal on “Texas Water Observatory (TWO): Capacity building in Brazos Corridor” was awarded. Congratulations! Department News Link.


06/20/2015 Maheshwari Neelam has been awarded the Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future 2015-2016 Fellowships. Congratulations!


10/14/2014 Dr. Binayak Mohanty was awarded Don & Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award. Congratulations!


09/22/2014 Dr. Binayak Mohanty was appointed as College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Chair in Hydrologic Engineering and Sciences for his research under the Earth’s surface. Congratulations!


02/27/2014-02/28/2014 Dr. Binayak Mohanty organized an Arid Zone Hydrology Workshop which drew internationally renowned scientists from across the United States and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology to identify water related challenges in the steadily increasing Arid zones of the Earth.


12/09/2013-12/13/2013 Vadose Zone Research Group members (Dr. Mohanty, Nandita Gaur, Jonggun Kim, Zhenlei Yang, Maheshwari Neelam, Samagra Rana and Celso Bandeira de Melo Bibeiro) attended AGU Fall Meeting which is held in San Francisco, California.


09/30/2013 Vadose Zone Research Group members (Binayak Mohanty, Nandita Gaur and Maheshwari Neelam) participated in the SMAPVEX12 Field Campaign in Manitoba, Canada in 2012. The team was conferred the NASA Group Achievement Award in recognition of its significant accomplishment. Congratulations!


05/27/2013-05/31/2013 Maheshwari Neelam was invited to attend SMOS Training course-II which was held at CESBIO, Toulouse, France. Only 16 trainees from 10 different countries were invited for the course. Congratulations!


04/10/2013 Dr. Yongchul Shin won AFS Distinguished Graduate Student Award and Nandita Gaur won BAEN Robert E. Stewart Graduate Excellence Award. Congratulations!


03/07/2013 Champa Joshi finished her dissertation defense and will be conferred PhD degree in Spring 2013 from Texas A&M University. Congratulations!


01/07/2013-01/09/2013 Vadose Zone Research Group members (Dr. Mohanty, Yongchul Shin, Jonggun Kim and Zhenlei Yang) attended 93rd AMS Annual Meeting which is held in Austin, Texas.


12/16/2012 Dr. Raghavendra B. Jana Joined KAUST Numerical Porous Media Group in Saudi Arabia. Congratulations and Good Luck to him!


12/14/2012 Dipankar Dwivedi and Yongchul Shin were conferred PhD degrees in Fall 2012 from Texas A&M University. Dr. Dipankar Dwivedi joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Climate Sciences Department as Postdoc Fellow. Dr. Yongchul Shin joined VZRG as Postdoc Fellow. Congratulations!


12/03/2012-12/07/2012 Vadose Zone Research Group members (Dr. Mohanty, Raghavendra B. Jana, Bhavna Arora, Dipankar Dwivedi, Yongchul Shin, Nandita Gaur, Maheshwari Neelam and Eduardo Anzueto) attended AGU Fall Meeting which is held in San Francisco, California.


11/09/2012 Vadose Zone Research Group was highlighted in the txH2O magazine, Fall 2012, pages 6~11; the detailed information could also be found at the website: (http://twri.tamu.edu/publications/txh2o/fall-2012/unlocking-secrets-of-the-vadose-zone/) –  Click here website


04/27/2012 Bhavna Arora was conferred PhD degree in Spring 2012 from Texas A&M University. Dr. Bhavna Arora joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Geochemistry Department as Postdoc Fellow. Congratulations!

GRADUATE STUDENT REQUIRED!!!

Click here for more details

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