Veena Srinivasan, part of the first cohort of EIPER students, received her PhD in 2008. Her PhD work contributed to understanding the impacts of urbanization on water vulnerability in a developing world context. Veena’s work helps understand how private coping actions by citizens in extracting and recharging groundwater influences urban water supply systems - a departure from traditional conceptualizations of urban water systems as being exclusively about piped supply. The research which makes innovative use of a coupled human-water systems model helps policy makers compare a suite of centralized and decentralized policy options ranging from improved management of recharge, rational tariff policy and supply augmentation.
After her PhD, Veena stayed on as a post-doctoral fellow to help found a Freshwater Initiative at Stanford. Her dissertation and post-doctoral work resulted in a number of journal articles in Water Resources Research, Water International and Global Environmental Change.
Veena is currently a Fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, and academic think-tank. Her research interests include inter-sectoral water allocation and impacts of urbanization on water resources. She is currently engaged in a comparative socio-hydrologic study of two urbanizing watersheds in India. Originally from Bombay, Veena has an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an M.A in Energy and Environmental Analyses from Boston University.
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I found it inspiring that faculty from different departments had voluntarily come together to solve major global environmental problems. EIPER's advising and funding models allow students to pursue "dream projects," defining and developing a research agenda we find relevant and interesting, instead of having to adapt to existing projects or any one professor's research interests.
Education
- 2008 | PhD , IPER, Stanford University
- 1997 | Master of Arts, Energy and Environmental Analyses, Boston University
- 1995 | Bachelor of Technology, Engineering Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
Honors and Awards
- 1996 – 1997 | Presidential Graduate Fellowship, Boston University
- 1989 – 1995 | National Talent Search Scholarship, Govt. of India
Professional Experience
- 2008 – Present | Post-doctoral Scholar, Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University
- 2001 | Researcher, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore, India
- 2001 – 2002 | Researcher, Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA
- 2000 | Associate, Structuring Group, Enron India Pvt. Ltd.
- 1998 – 1999 | Consultant, Utilities Sector, Pricewaterhouse Coopers India Ltd.
Publications
- 2010 * | SRINIVASAN, V., GORELICK, S. M. & GOULDER, L. 2010. A hydrologic-economic modeling approach for analysis of urban water supply dynamics in Chennai, India. Water Resources Research, 46, W07540, doi:10.1029/2009WR008693.
- 2010 * | SRINIVASAN, V., GORELICK, S. & GOULDER, L. 2010. Factors determining informal tanker water markets in Chennai, India. Water International, 35, 254-269.
- 2010 * | SRINIVASAN, V., GORELICK, S. M. & GOULDER, L. 2010. Sustainable urban water supply in South India: Desalination, Efficiency Improvement, or Rainwater Harvesting? . Water Resources Research, doi:10.1029/2009WR008698
Teaching Activities
EIPER 315
