Paromita Basak, a graduate of Syslab and the CEU's Environmental Science and Policy Department, has been awarded a $150,000 research grant by NASA’s Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) program. This prestigious grant will support her PhD research at the University of Maryland, where she is working on “Analyzing Spatial Co-Benefits of Carbon and Structural Diversity in Southeast Asia with GEDI.”
Her research seeks to identify and prioritize critical 'co-benefit' zones in Southeast Asia—areas that are essential for both climate resilience and biodiversity conservation. The study will also assess the impact of human activities on these zones, contributing to global conservation efforts.
Paromita’s academic journey at CEU was significantly shaped by her involvement with Syslab, where she conducted research on "Using Open Geospatial Data to Analyze the Climate Change Impact on Food Security in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan)." This experience deepened her interest in applying environmental science to real-world challenges.
Since then, she has remained a team member and actively involved with Syslab, participating in summer courses and supporting various events and workshops, including leading the Missing Maps Mapathons organized across Syslab's university network.
Now pursuing her PhD at the University of Maryland, Paromita continues to build on the foundation she developed at CEU and Syslab. The FINESST funding, which will begin in January 2025 and continue for three years, will enable her to push forward her research on conservation in Southeast Asia. Her findings are expected to support global conservation targets, including the goal of conserving 30% of land by 2030.
We are proud of Paromita’s accomplishments and look forward to seeing the impact of her research on global environmental conservation.