Bithin Datta

Currently at Discipline of Civil Engineering, College of Science and Engineering, Division of Tropical Environments and Societies at James Cook University, Australia. Also associated with: Water Quality and Contaminants Research Group, TropWATER (Centre for Tropical Waters and Aquatic Ecosystem Research), the Economic Geology Research Centre (EGRU) at James Cook University, and CRC-for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC-CARE), University of Newcastle, Australia. He completed his B.Tech. (Hons.) degree in Civil Engineering from the internationally renowned and premiere Engineering University in India, I.I.T Kharagpur, with first class Honors, and was a rank holder. He then completed his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering with first rank in his specialization. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in U.S.A., specializing in Hydraulics and Systems Engineering, from the School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, U.S.A. He is a Fellow of the Engineers Australia (FIEAust).

The research contributions of Dr Bithin Datta, have recently been highlighted by the international research impact ranking organisation Highly Ranked Scholars™ (ScholarGPS), Link: Research.com - JCU. He has achieved the distinction of being recognised as the lifetime world number 1 ranked researcher in three critical specialisations: (i) Groundwater Pollution, (ii) Surrogate Models (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning Models), and (iii) Saltwater Intrusion in coastal aquifers. This prestigious recognition underscores Dr. Datta's exceptional contributions in these fields, solidifying his status as the world’s leading researcher in water resource management area.

After completion of his Ph.D. he worked in various positions at University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.A., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, U.S.A., and then as a Research Faculty at University of California, Davis, CA, U.S.A., totaling bout 11 years. He then joined the Civil Engineering Department at IIT Kanpur in India, and was promoted to the Position of Professor in 1995 and also Senior Professor Position in 2009. There, he also held the positions of Professor and Head of the Civil Engineering Department, and Head of the interdisciplinary Postgraduate Environmental Engineering and Management Program. He also served as Visiting Professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, Denmark Technical University, Copenhagen, and Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok. He has guided many Master’s Theses (30+) and has completed successful guidance of many Ph.D. theses: eight at I.I.T. Kanpur India; then ten at James Cook University (by 2022), and one at University of South Australia, Adelaide. He has authored: many Technical Articles in very reputed peer reviewed international Journals, Book Chapters, and numerous Conference papers. He is also internationally well known for his pioneering research work on Optimal Identification of unknown pollution sources in contaminated Groundwater aquifers, design of optimal monitoring networks incorporating uncertainties for management of contaminated aquifers, management of coastal aquifers for saltwater intrusion control and remediation, and real-time operation of water reservoir (dams) systems. He was the Co-Chair of the ASCE-EWRI (American Society of Civil Engineers- Environmental and Water Resources Institute) International conference on Water and Environmental Systems held first time outside U.S.A. He also, served as an advisor in the Water Resources Systems Technical Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

He was instrumental in guiding to successful completion a new integrated Bachelors and Masters degree program in Civil Engineering at I.I.T. Kanpur, during his headship of the Civil Engineering Department. This program was designed to attract the best student talents to postgraduate studies in Engineering. At JCU, he is currently the Coordinator of the recently established Master of Engineering (Professional) program in Water Resources Management.

He has been the project leader in a number of state of the art applied mega research projects related to Hydrologic Modeling and Water Resources/ Groundwater Management, first in U.S.A., then in India. He has worked as advisor to the U.P. government in the World Bank supported project on Restructuring of the Water Resources Sector in the state of U.P., India. He has served as a member of the high powered committee of the Government of India for final clearance of Large Scale River Basin Projects, including hydropower projects. At James Cook University he was the project leader and sole PI of a Mega, technology development project: developing computational tools for identification of unknown groundwater pollution sources and optimal design of monitoring networks for detection of groundwater pollution, funded by CRC-CARE, University of Newcasle, Australia, and University of South Australia, Adelaide. The total cash funding for this project including additional full Scholarship support for Ph.D. students, and dedicated project funding which ammounted to $629,000.00, starting in 2009.