Davender Sethi

About

Dr. Davender Sethi is an atmospheric scientist specializing in aerosol–radiation interactions, air quality, and climate change. He earned his Ph.D. from CSIR–National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL), where he investigated long-term aerosol characteristics over the Indian Western Himalaya using ground-based observations from a high-altitude remote monitoring station and satellite data (MODIS, CALIPSO). During his doctoral research, he applied unsupervised machine learning methods and predictive modeling for air quality analysis. He has strong expertise in lidar-based remote sensing and in analyzing data from aethalometers, particulate monitors, and advanced aerosol instrumentation.

He is currently a Scientist at Airawat Research Foundation, working at the intersection of air quality data and AI/ML, and has completed his postdoctoral research at IIT Kanpur, where he also developed one of the first indigenous mobile laboratories for hyperlocal air quality monitoring. His research integrates observations from reference-grade instrumentation and machine learning for generating a scalable solution for near-real-time source apportionment and predictive air quality modeling.

He has also collaborated with scientists at the National Observatory of Athens, Greece, where his work focused on understanding the impacts of aerosols, clouds, and urban effects on radiation, as well as estimating rooftop photovoltaic potential. This research utilized MSG (EUMETSAT) and AERONET observations, along with radiative transfer modeling (libRadtran), to study cloud–radiation interactions.

Employment

• Airawat Research Foundation, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Scientist
  2025 - Present
• Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Post doctoral Fellow
  2023 - 2025

Education

• CSIR National Physical Laboratory of India PhD
  2015 - 2022

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (9)

• High-resolution source apportionment and health risks of PM2.5-bound trace elements across a major Indian city: Seasonal and diurnal insights from a multi-site campaign using a mobile laboratory platform
  Atmospheric Environment 2026 DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2025.121675
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• Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential in Polluted Indian Cities: Atmospheric and Urban Impacts, Climate Trends, Societal Gains, and Economic Opportunities
  Remote Sensing 2025 DOI: 10.3390/rs17071221
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• Provably Outlier-resistant Semi-parametric Regression for Transferable Calibration of Low-cost Air-quality Sensors
  Arxiv 2025 DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2511.19810
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• Effect of Dust Events on Photovoltaics Electricity Production in the European and North African Regions
  COMECAP 2023 2023 DOI: 10.3390/environsciproc2023026008
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• Aerosol optical properties over Delhi during a dust event in summer 2014: plausible implications
  Indian Journal of Physics 2021 DOI: 10.1007/s12648-021-02092-3
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• Studies on Aerosol Optical Properties at High Altitude Station in Western Himalayas Using Raman Lidar
  EPJ Web of Conferences 2020 DOI: 10.1051/epjconf/202023702034
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• Photochemistry of ozone over urban area: a case study for Delhi City
  Indian Journal of Physics 2019 DOI: 10.1007/s12648-018-1326-x
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• Estimation of ‘Dead Time’ of Transient Digitizer in Raman Lidar
  2019 URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference (AP-RASC) 2019 DOI: 10.23919/ursiap-rasc.2019.8738338
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• Experimental investigation of variations in morphology, composition and mixing-state of boundary layer aerosol: A balloon based study over urban environment (New Delhi)
  Atmospheric Environment 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.04.053
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