Prof. Sumant Nigam is a Professor and Chair of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland, with a joint appointment in the university's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. He earned his M.Sc degree in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1978, supported by the National Science Talent Scholarship.He is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2013 from IIT Kanpur.
Prof. Nigam came to the University of Maryland in 1987, where he is currently a Professor of atmospheric and oceanic science, and earth system science. From 2000-2002, he was the Director of the large-scale dynamic meteorology program of the US National Science Foundation. He obtained his Ph.D. in geophysical fluid dynamics from Princeton University in 1984 and from 1984 to 1987, he did postdoctoral work with Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. Prof Nigam is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the Royal Meteorological Society. He was featured on the cover of science in May 2004 in connection with a report on foreign-born US scientists, titled "brains and borders: many origins, one destination".
