Anu Ramaswami with Dhanasree Durairaj, a local Chennai intern with Princeton University, and Amir, an auto- rickshaw driver. Photos courtesy of the researchers
Last May, Neha Agarwal returned to her home city of Delhi, India, to initiate a Princeton study measuring human exposure to extreme heat. Stepping out of the airport “felt like walking into a furnace,” said Agarwal, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering.
Agarwal is a member of Princeton’s Urban Nexus Lab, led by Anu Ramaswami, Sanjay Swani ’87 Professor of India Studies and a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute, as well as director of Princeton’s M.S. Chadha Center for Global India. Ramaswami designed the study to focus on measuring human exposure to extreme heat stress in India’s cities, with potential to extend learning to other cities of the Global South.
Ramaswami’s lab aims to improve cities’ equity and environmental sustainability in tandem, taking a holistic approach to solutions in energy, buildings, transportation, and other sectors. With extreme heat becoming more frequent, the variability in exposure to heat stress across socioeconomic groups and neighborhoods is a missing piece of this complex puzzle.
