Plastic pollution is often discussed in terms of what we can see: floating debris, shoreline litter, and microplastics (MPs) in surface waters. However, a less visible but equally important aspect is how plastics evolve in the environment and how this transformation affects contaminant transport. My master’s thesis and research focused on this overlooked dimension throughContinue reading “The Hidden Life of Microplastics: Bio-Aging and Organic Sorption in Water Systems”
Category Archives: Publications
From a Childhood Poem to Water Research
When people ask me why I chose water research, I usually don’t have a short answer. Part of the answer goes back to my childhood. Growing up, one of my favourite places in the house was our family library, where a collection of novels, books, and poetry were kept. One day I came across aContinue reading “From a Childhood Poem to Water Research”
Smart Blue Roofs: Turning Rooftops into Active Stormwater Infrastructure
Urban Stormwater Management in Practice Climate change is expected to increase the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall, raising the risk of urban flooding in Ontario. In 2024, the City of Mississauga, Ontario, experienced two severe storms. The first event on July 16 generated up to 102 mm, and another large storm on August 17–18Continue reading “Smart Blue Roofs: Turning Rooftops into Active Stormwater Infrastructure”
Why Reservoirs Matter More Than Ever: My Journey Toward Water and Food Security
Water has always been more than a research topic for me. It shapes lives, communities, and opportunities. Growing up, I witnessed how access to water could determine whether crops survived a dry season, whether families felt secure about the future, and whether entire communities could thrive. Those experiences inspired me to pursue water resources engineeringContinue reading “Why Reservoirs Matter More Than Ever: My Journey Toward Water and Food Security”
Finding Your Current: My pathway as a Young Water Professional
Water is everywhere. Born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, I grew up surrounded by the Great Lakes. My summers were spent collecting bugs and frogs and searching for cool rocks. I was seven or eight when I received my first microscope; a small, monocular discovery scope from a children’s science kit. That giftContinue reading “Finding Your Current: My pathway as a Young Water Professional”
What We Bury Comes Back as Water: Rethinking Landfills as Water Infrastructure
One day, I visited one of Cairo’s largest dumpsites. The sight of the leachate pond seeping beneath the waste mountain was terrifying! The water was dark in color, almost black, really smelly, and attracted a lot of flies and mosquitoes. What struck me most was not just what I could see, but what was silentlyContinue reading “What We Bury Comes Back as Water: Rethinking Landfills as Water Infrastructure”
Unveiling Chemical Fingerprints: Applications of Advanced Machine Learning for Environmental Forensics in Plastic Pollution
Graphical abstract for the blog post Keywords: microplastics, non-targeted fingerprinting, clustering analyses, supervised machine learning. What are environmental forensics and chemical fingerprints? Looking at the term “fingerprints” or “forensics” in the title of this blog, it probably reminds you of a detective TV show that you have seen or a book that you have read,Continue reading “Unveiling Chemical Fingerprints: Applications of Advanced Machine Learning for Environmental Forensics in Plastic Pollution”
Water Finance: A Discipline Born Across Systems
My interests have never followed a straight line. Neither has my career, nor the geographies that shaped it. But over time, the pattern behind that movement became clearer.I grew up and trained in India, lived and worked across North America, and later across Europe. Over time, I came to understand that these were not simplyContinue reading “Water Finance: A Discipline Born Across Systems”
Tides of Growth: Insights from my first year as a Young Water Professional
Picture yourself as you’ve just finished your undergraduate degree. We’ve all been there before. Fresh out of university, ready to take on every challenge that comes our way, thinking our excitement and willpower are the only things needed for us to jumpstart our careers. These were my thoughts when I decided to enroll in a Master’sContinue reading “Tides of Growth: Insights from my first year as a Young Water Professional”
From Permit Conditions to Community Impacts: Practical Lessons from Water Governance in Northern Canada
Water governance in Canada often looks tidy on paper. Legislation is clear, permit conditions are detailed, and monitoring frameworks are well defined. In practice, however, effective water management depends less on perfect documents and more on how regulators, proponents, and communities interpret and apply those requirements on the ground. My work as an Environmental RegulatoryContinue reading “From Permit Conditions to Community Impacts: Practical Lessons from Water Governance in Northern Canada”
IWA YWP Canada 