Shams Azad

Dr. Shams Azad is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Columbia Climate School, Columbia University. His research focuses on integrating geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, data science, and sensor technologies to address environmental pollution, critical infrastructure resilience, urban informatics, and environmental justice. He holds a Ph.D. from New York University (2023), an M.S. from Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (2017), and a B.S. from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (2014).

His work emphasizes developing sustainable solutions to enhance resilience against environmental challenges such as extreme weather, natural disasters, and health risks. Key research areas include air quality in urban transportation systems (e.g., NYC subway particulate matter studies), hurricane-induced power restoration analysis, and spatial-temporal studies of residential satisfaction during the pandemic using crowdsourced data. He has collaborated on interdisciplinary projects like thick mapping approaches for post-disaster resilience in Puerto Rico and socio-technical frameworks for critical infrastructure vulnerability assessment.

His publications highlight contributions to air quality monitoring, infrastructure resilience, and disaster risk reduction. Notable works include studies on nitrogen dioxide emissions during the 2020 lockdown and methodologies for predicting power outages using satellite data. He is affiliated with the Columbia Climate School and actively engaged in advancing computational methods to address societal and environmental challenges.