Dr Kasturi Shah
College Research Associate
Research interestsKasturi Shah is a McDonnell Foundation Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Her research is at the interface of earth sciences and applied mathematics. Using theoretical and experimental techniques, she develops minimal models to explain well-observed yet poorly understood geophysical phenomena, informed by her engagement with field and satellite data. A running theme of her research is dynamical self-organisation, in particular, how order and structure spontaneously emerge in geophysical systems. Some examples of current and past work include self-organisation of wildfire smoke into aerosol-filled vortices, granular cryospheric dynamics such as ice mélange and ice-sediment interactions, atmospheric transport, and multiscale turbulence in stellar and planetary interiors. She moved to Cambridge from the other Cambridge, where she completed her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her free time, she enjoys distance running, painting, and contributing to communities she is part of, such as the vibrant College life at St. John’s.