Bharat Sharma

Bio

Bharat Sharma is a Research Scientist in the Computational Urban Sciences Group within the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His work centers on the intersection of computational Earth system modeling and critical infrastructure systems, with a focus on advancing the representation and prediction of complex environmental–infrastructure feedbacks by leveraging big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing.

Currently, Bharat is engaged in several multidisciplinary projects, including:

• Investigating the resiliency of transportation networks under targeted and potential climate change disruptions (in collaboration with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
• Developing a domain-specific large language model (LLM) for Earth system data
• Modeling forest stand CO₂ and nutrient interactions in the demographically enabled ELM-FATES to improve predictions of terrestrial carbon dynamics under changing environmental conditions

Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Environmental Sciences Division at ORNL. Bharat holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Engineering (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) from Northeastern University, where his research focused on detecting extreme events in carbon fluxes and attributing them to individual and compound climate drivers using observations and Earth system models. During his Ph.D., he was an exchange graduate student at the Climate Change Science Institute at ORNL, studying the impacts of climate change on the terrestrial carbon cycle. His academic background includes a Master’s in Transportation Systems from the Technical University of Munich and a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur. Bharat has also gained industry experience at Obermeyer and New Delhi International Airport. Beyond research, he enjoys cooking, reading, and connecting with friends and family.

Publications

Other Publications