Get to know Sayanti Mukherjee
UBNow profiles Dr. Mukherjee’s research, her path to UB and what makes her proud to be part of it.
UBNowNews, events and announcements
What the OASIS Lab has been up to: coverage and awards, talks and conferences, and opportunities.
2026
UB leads $2M NSF project on wildfire resilience
REKINDLE will build AI-powered tools for cascading wildfire hazards, with UC Berkeley, Northeastern and PNNL.
UB News
The Buffalo News covers REKINDLE
UB to lead the $2 million NSF project on wildfire resilience.
Buffalo News
Northeastern joins the REKINDLE team
Northeastern’s College of Engineering on the four-institution effort.
Northeastern
With the Chauncey Starr Award at SRA 2025
Poulomee Roy and Dr. Mukherjee at the SRA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
SRA Chauncey Starr Award
Society for Risk Analysis honors Dr. Mukherjee for exceptional contributions to risk analysis.
UB News
GeoFlame VISION maps future wildfire risk
PreventionWeb features AI and satellite-based wildfire risk maps, about 92% accurate.
PreventionWeb
Renewables need social and economic buy-in
Niagara Gazette covers prize-winning work on renewable energy integration and grid resilience.
Niagara Gazette
American-Made Science Synthesis Prize
Team OASIS UB is one of eight winners of DOE’s $10,000 Science Synthesis Prize on renewable grid integration.
DOE announcement
UB Pillars of Leadership Award
Dr. Mukherjee honored for exemplary mentorship (mid-level faculty/staff).
Read the postFour talks at the Natural Hazards Workshop
Wildfire resource inequity, GenAI infrastructure risk, social impacts and a county risk index.
ESREL & SRA-Europe, Norway
Poulomee Roy presents post-wildfire resource allocation inequities across the Southwest.
BLAZE TRACK at IISE
Dynamic wildfire risk maps from MODIS satellite imagery and AI.
Wildfire resources aren’t shared equally
Phys.org: disadvantaged California communities got fewer personnel and less funding.
Phys.orgSRA EISG student merit award
Honorable mention for Poulomee Roy.
Puerto Rico datasets published
Hurricane Fiona interviews and focus groups, open on NHERI DesignSafe.
DesignSafe$750,000 NSF grant on wildfire inequities
Dr. Mukherjee leads a UB–UCF team studying emergency management disparities.
UB NewsFeatured by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
Work with Fatima Umer on socioeconomic factors in wildfire resource allocation.
Inequity in U.S. wildfire emergency response
The same study featured in Society for Risk Analysis News.
CBS News on the aging U.S. grid
Dr. Mukherjee on grid vulnerability to extreme weather and climate change.
The Hill on climate change
“It’s obvious that climate change is real, and it’s happening.”
Fieldwork in Puerto Rico
Stakeholder interviews and focus groups after Hurricane Fiona (NSF RAPID).
Physician PTSD study in IEEE Access
Factors behind post-traumatic stress in physicians during COVID-19, with the AMA.
Read paperSpectrum News: why not bury power lines?
Dr. Mukherjee weighs in as Hurricane Ian knocks out power to millions.
WGRZ on soaring heating costs
Rising natural gas prices and the risk of energy poverty. Also carried by MSN.
ISE teaching award, honorable mention
Zhiyuan Wei recognized for excellence as a teaching assistant.
Natural Hazards Student Research Grant
Zhiyuan Wei funded to model disparities in access to essential services.
IISE DAIS best student paper finalist
Mapping human mobility and critical services during disasters.
Multidimensional population health
New IEEE Access paper models many dimensions of health at once.
Read paperLA Times: AC demand may exceed grid supply
Collaborative Earth’s Future study, also highlighted by AGU.
Read paper
Tech Xplore covers wildfire grid risk
Prasangsha Ganguly’s Geo-AI framework gets his first media coverage.
SRA OHSSG student merit award
Zhiyuan Wei, for research on physician PTSD during COVID-19.
Suicide disparities in PLOS One
Socio-environmental drivers of suicide rates across U.S. metro areas.
Read paperPopular Science on the infrastructure bill
Dr. Mukherjee on the green energy bets in the new law.
What drives wildfire size
Geophysical and human factors in western U.S. wildfires, in SERRA.
Read paper
Mental health and cities in Scientific Reports
Built environment and community mental health across U.S. metros.
Read paperVoice of America on heat waves
How extreme heat strains urban infrastructure and health.
Sewer failure risk in Risk Analysis
A two-stage machine learning model for urban sewer failures.
Read paper
News 5 Cleveland on outage reporting
Questions about transparency in Cleveland Public Power outage data.
Natural Hazards Student Research Grant
Prasangsha Ganguly, for wildfire risk on interconnected infrastructure.
Popular Science on the Texas blackouts
Why the outages were years in the making.
Adolescent suicide risk study
Zhiyuan Wei’s first journal paper, in the American Journal of Health Promotion.
Read paperPopular Science on U.S. power outages
Why the U.S. has more outages than other developed countries.
Expertise cited in News Break
Dr. Mukherjee’s research cited in News Break.
UB Now: better energy demand predictions
A new model for New York State energy demand.
Risk Analysis Best Paper 2019
With Dr. Roshanak Nateghi, on climate-driven electricity supply risks.
Read paperScienceNews: adapting the grid to wildfire
What it will take to prepare the power grid for higher wildfire risk.
Power grid pressure
Oil & Gas 360 and UPI on climate change raising electricity demand.
Climate change stress on the grid
Coverage of grid stress research.
Dew point and the power grid
Phys.org, UBMD and Market Business News on climate stress beyond industry estimates.
Indiana energy under climate change
Purdue Newsroom and The Exponent on projected energy use shifts.
Hardening the grid against weather outages
Purdue Research Newsroom on infrastructure research.
Events
Talks, conferences, symposia and workshopsNatural Hazards Workshop 2025
Lab talks on wildfire resource inequity, GenAI infrastructure risk and a county wildfire risk index.
Broomfield, CO
ESREL & SRA-Europe 2025
Poulomee Roy presents post-wildfire resource allocation inequities across the Southwest.
Stavanger, Norway
IISE Annual Conference 2025
BLAZE TRACK: dynamic wildfire risk maps from satellite imagery and AI.
Atlanta, GA
IIT Kharagpur, Department of AI
A multi-faceted, human-centric approach to equitable wildfire resilience of critical infrastructure.
Kharagpur, India
SRA Annual Meeting 2024
Dr. Mukherjee chairs the symposium on confronting the wildfire crisis with risk-informed preparedness and recovery.
Austin, TX
DOE Cybersecurity and Technology Innovation Conference
Reimagining grid resilience through an equity-focused lens.
Dallas, TX
NSF workshop on equitable wildfire emergency management
Lead organizer of the add-on meeting at the Natural Hazards Conference.
Broomfield, CO
SRA Engineering & Infrastructure webinar
Promoting equitable wildfire resilience of critical infrastructure.
Online
Purdue University, Civil Engineering
Advancing equitable climate resilience of interdependent infrastructure under deep uncertainty.
West Lafayette, IN
UB Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering
A roadmap to advance climate resilience of the U.S. energy sector.
Buffalo, NY
SRA Annual Meeting 2022
Symposium chair: enhancing power grid resilience under climatic extremes.
Tampa, FL
Rochester Institute of Technology
Seminar on multilayered modeling of sociotechnical systems and climatic extremes, featuring OASIS projects.
Rochester, NY
ESREL 2021
Wildfire-induced risk on interconnected infrastructure using a bow-tie model and self-organizing maps.
Angers, France
INFORMS Healthcare 2019
Dr. Mukherjee chairs a session and presents two papers on suicide mortality and mental health.
Cambridge, MA
Announcements
Opportunities, open data and lab updatesProspective students
We welcome PhD, MS and undergraduate researchers interested in risk, infrastructure and data science. Email a CV and a short note.
Email Dr. MukherjeeHurricane Fiona datasets available
Stakeholder interviews and community focus groups from Puerto Rico are open for research use.
View on DesignSafeAffiliate Faculty, Institute for AI and Data Science
Dr. Mukherjee joins UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.
Adjunct appointment in Electrical Engineering
Dr. Mukherjee is now also Adjunct Assistant Professor in UB Electrical Engineering.
Special issue in Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Data-driven approaches in modeling climate risk, resilience and sustainability of food, energy, water and health systems. Guest edited by Dr. Mukherjee.
SRA UB Student Chapter
Founded by Dr. Mukherjee. Students interested in risk analysis are welcome to join.