Like the hundreds of rivers and streams she and her team have rendered in exquisite detail, Debjani Singh's career has taken some twists and turns.
Singh is a senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory with expertise in water resources, data science and earth science, a combination that makes her uniquely suited to lead the HydroSource project, where she applies data science to solve complex water resource management issues. HydroSource is a national-scale digital platform that offers access to a collection of datasets, visualizations, and analytical tools designed to advance water power research and development. Since 2019, it has been Singh's job to make ORNL's vast trove of hydropower data findable, interoperable and reusable, whether the person browsing is from another lab, someone in the industry or just a curious member of the public.
Singh's goal is to bridge the gap between the world of research and practical application by giving the data life beyond the traditional confines of scientific inquiry.
"What does it mean if the data is just sitting on your laptop? Nothing," Singh said.
In addition, Singh and her team are exploring the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to generate new datasets and fresh insights, pushing the boundaries of how data can be used to enhance understanding and innovation in the field.
Singh's efforts are paying off. With the ongoing support of the DOE Water Power Technologies Office, HydroSource has evolved into a comprehensive source of hydropower-related datasets in the United States, serving a diverse and expanding user base that includes hydropower developers, researchers, utilities, water managers, environmental stakeholders and policy makers. An increasing number of large federal agencies now collaborate with the HydroSource team, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey.
She also leads the team responsible for curating and publishing research data generated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Terrestrial Ecology Program, which is part of the agency's Earth Sciences Division. Singh's organization, the ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center for Biogeochemical Dynamics or ORNL DAAC, is the primary repository for observational data collected via land-based equipment, water-borne vessels and aerial instruments.
A family tradition
It is not surprising that Singh became a scientist. Growing up in Durgapur, a city in India's state of West Bengal, she was immersed in science from an early age, thanks to her father, who was an engineer.
"My father inculcated that scientific curiosity and mathematical ability," Singh said. "That really molded and conditioned me and my younger brother."
Her academic interests were also influenced by childhood vacations at her grandfather's beach house.
"Observing the dynamics of the sea and waves, together with erosion and sedimentation patterns forming on the beaches was very captivating to me," Singh said.
Her particular love of rocks and minerals led her to earn an undergraduate degree in geology from Presidency College in Kolkata, followed by a master's degree in applied geology from the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, and a master's in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.
She was drawn to the study of water resources almost immediately with her first job. She was hired as a subject matter expert in earth sciences for Tata Consultancy Services, one of the largest information technology and software development companies in India. There she found herself diving into digital technology, using her earth science background to develop an application for the Central Ground Water Board of India.
"That's where I gained my expertise in software development and its applications," Singh said. "It wasn't part of my original plan. I had always envisioned working for the Geological Survey of India, but this was an exciting turn in my career."
Then as now, she found it rewarding to help geologists in the field analyze and visualize their data and disseminate their findings through a public-facing application. After three years, she was drawn to the idea of doing her own research in earth sciences.
"Just sitting and coding was not what I enjoyed. I wanted to go back into research and development, so I decided to go to graduate school," Singh said. "I wanted to move on to something more exciting."
In 2003, graduate studies brought her to the United States. Singh earned a doctorate in earth and atmospheric sciences from Purdue University in 2007, where her research focused on water resources.
"I was trying to find out if you spray fungicides on soybeans in the midwestern U.S., then how much of it goes into the water and what are the implications for humans and the environment," Singh said.
Singh continued her work as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research scientist at Texas A&M University, where she helped develop the web-based Hydrologic and Water Quality System, or HAWQS, for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is currently being used across the nation to model water quality.
At home in a multi-disciplinary environment
Following her stint at Texas A&M, she took a job in the private sector, but again found herself increasingly drawn to science.
"Every time I went into industry I just thought about research. It was around that time I realized that I should apply to ORNL," Singh said. "With my data science experience, I could fit in with a lot of positions here."
In hindsight, the transition appears very natural, Singh said.
This is going to be revolutionary, not only for our work, but also for the industry and others related to hydropower. That is one of many very novel applications that we're developing to support the hydropower industry.
"ORNL provides you with a lot of different niches and expertise you can work with to build up your own research portfolio," Singh said. "That is something I like. In the places I have worked before I haven't come across this diversity of skills, knowledge and opportunity to collaborate with fellow scientists."
Singh said she is not sure exactly where the next few years will take her, but that her interests are veering towards how climate change will impact water quality with respect to the nation's hydropower network.
In the meantime, she continues to add new data and applications to HydroSource. Right now, Singh and her team are developing two big additions to the platform: A web-based application that will allow users to identify areas or hydropower assets that may be under stress due to climate change-either through drought or an increase in precipitation-and a natural language processing model that can parse through and extract information from the hundreds of lengthy documents currently stored in the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's e-library.
"This is going to be revolutionary, not only for our work, but also for the industry and others related to hydropower," Singh said. "That is one of many very novel applications that we're developing to support the hydropower industry."
Outside of work, Singh enjoys spending time with her spouse Nagendra Singh-a fellow geologist and a scientist at ORNL-and their two teenage children, hiking around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other national parks across the country.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. - Clare Kennedy
