New Delhi: Renowned climate scientist and professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Krishna AchutaRao, passed away on Friday at the age of 62 following a prolonged illness.
His colleagues and students described his passing as a significant loss to the scientific community, saying he was one of India’s pioneering voices in understanding climate change and worked tirelessly towards advancing climate adaptation.
“He was suffering from health issues for a long time, but we didn’t expect to lose him so suddenly. He was still teaching at the institute,” Mila Mitra, AchutaRao’s wife, told HT.
AchutaRao earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in mathematics from BITS Pilani in 1986. He later moved to the US to pursue a PhD, where he worked for several years before returning to India. In 2007, he joined the IIT Delhi’s Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS).
His tenure at IIT Delhi extended beyond teaching, as he also held several key administrative positions, including head of the CAS and dean of faculty. He was also associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and was a member of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).
Ambuj Sagar, professor and head of the School of Public Policy at IIT-Delhi, said AchutaRao’s early-career work focused largely on understanding climate change as a global phenomenon. After returning to India, however, he increasingly turned his attention to the Indian context. He pioneered the establishment of the Centre of Excellence on Climate Adaptation at IIT Delhi, Sagar said.
{{/usCountry}}Ambuj Sagar, professor and head of the School of Public Policy at IIT-Delhi, said AchutaRao’s early-career work focused largely on understanding climate change as a global phenomenon. After returning to India, however, he increasingly turned his attention to the Indian context. He pioneered the establishment of the Centre of Excellence on Climate Adaptation at IIT Delhi, Sagar said.
{{/usCountry}}“During his PhD years in the US in the 1990s, AchutaRao focused extensively on the detection and attribution of climate change. He was among those scholars who believed that it was equally important to rigorously understand the problems and questions surrounding climate change as it was to work towards finding solutions. After returning to India, he worked tirelessly to understand climate change at a regional level across the country,” said Sagar.
Recalling AchutaRao’s dedication to his work, his colleague at CAS, Professor Somnath Baidya Roy, who knew him for nearly 15 years, described him as “extremely rigorous.” “He was a quality-over-quantity person. He was never really concerned about the number of research papers he published or the scale of his outreach programmes. He was also least concerned about his own achievements, and was a very down-to-earth and dedicated person,” Roy added.
Anjal Prakash, a public policy professor at FLAME University, Pune, and an IPCC author who worked with AchutaRao on a report, said his focus on climate risks and adaptation made him a trusted voice not only in academia but also in public discourse. “What always stood out was his ability to translate complex climate science—especially on heat extremes, monsoon variability, and attribution—into clear, actionable messages for journalists, students, and policymakers,” said Prakash.
His loss is particularly personal for his students, in whom AchutaRao instilled the same rigour and commitment to excellence that defined his own work. “He never spoon-fed us. He encouraged us to ask right questions, and to think critically and independently,” said Chaithra S T, a PhD student at CAS who recently submitted her thesis under AchutaRao’s guidance.
IIT Delhi expressed its condolences on AchutaRao’s passing. “He served at the institute for nearly two decades...The institute community extends its heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and students,” IIT-D said in a post on X.