Nikita Kaushal

Lerner-Gray Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Email:

nkaushalSPAMFILTER@amnh.org

Education

University of Oxford, United Kingdom, PhD, 2018

University of Pune, India, Masters, 2010

Research Interests

Nikita is trained as a Geologist. She works in the fields of paleoclimate and biogeochemistry on a range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from regional to global, and centuries to half a million years. She uses natural archives such as speleothems and corals, and multiple approaches including field and lab work, and database techniques. Her goal is to understand the drivers, pathways and responses of the climate and carbon cycles during different climate states in order to, ultimately, inform our understanding of future changes.  

During this two-year project on the Lerner-Gray grant at AMNH, she aims to improve hydroclimate projections using speleothem and coral archives, and a data-model comparison approach.

She also believes that tapping into talent pools with different skill sets distributed across the globe is one of the most efficient and equitable ways that we have of scaling climate solutions rapidly. She therefore actively advocates for open science and data, does outreach work in climate education to those working in civic fields in different capacities across the world, and project work on tech solutions for on-the-ground decision-making.

Publications

Endres, S., E., Jacquin, C., Gonzalez-Lemos, S., Rodriguez-Rodriguez, L., Sliwinski, J., Kaushal, N., Kost, O., Stoll, H., M. (2023). Climatic and cave settings influence on drip water fluorescent organic matter with implications for fluorescent laminations in stalagmites. Quaternary Research, 1-21.

Kaushal, N., Lechleitner, F. A., Wilhelm, M., Bühler, J. C., Braun, K., Ait Brahim, Y., ... & Zhang, H. (2023). SISALv3: A global speleothem stable isotope and trace element database. Earth System Science Data Discussions, 2023, 1-33.

Hatvani, I. G., Kern, Z., Tanos, P., Wilhelm, M., Lechleitner, F. A., & Kaushal, N. (2023). The SISAL webApp: exploring the speleothem climate and environmental archives of the world. Quaternary Research, 1-7.

Kaushal, N., Tanzil, J. T., Zhou, Y., Ong, M. R., Goodkin, N. F., & Martin, P. (2022). Environmental calibration of coral luminescence as a proxy for terrigenous dissolved organic carbon concentration in tropical coastal oceans. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 23(10), e2022GC010529.

Band, S. T., Yadava, M. G., Kaushal, N., Midhun, M., Thirumalai, K., Francis, T., ... & Narayana, A. C. (2022). Southern hemisphere forced millennial scale Indian summer monsoon variability during the late Pleistocene. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 10136.

Belem, A., Bell, T., Burdett, H. L., Ibarra, D., Kaushal, N., Keenan, B., ... & Truax, O. (2022). Paleoclimatology and paleoceanography perspectives on integrated, coordinated, open, networked (ICON) science. Earth and Space Science, 9(1), e2021EA002115.

Parker, S. E., Harrison, S. P., Comas-Bru, L., Kaushal, N., LeGrande, A. N., & Werner, M. (2021). A data–model approach to interpreting speleothem oxygen isotope records from monsoon regions. Climate of the Past, 17(3), 1119-1138.

Kaushal, N., Sanwlani, N., Tanzil, J. T., Cherukuru, N., Sahar, S., Müller, M., ... & Martin, P. (2021). Coral skeletal luminescence records changes in terrestrial chromophoric dissolved organic matter in tropical coastal waters. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(8), e2020GL092130.

Comas-Bru, L., Rehfeld, K., Roesch, C., Amirnezhad-Mozhdehi, S., Harrison, S. P., Atsawawaranunt, K., ... & SISAL Working Group members. (2020). SISALv2: a comprehensive speleothem isotope database with multiple age–depth models. Earth System Science Data, 12(4), 2579-2606.

Kaushal, N., Yang, L., Tanzil, J. T., Lee, J. N., Goodkin, N. F., & Martin, P. (2020). Sub-annual fluorescence measurements of coral skeleton: relationship between skeletal luminescence and terrestrial humic-like substances. Coral Reefs, 39, 1257-1272.

Comas-Bru, L., Harrison, S. P., Werner, M., Rehfeld, K., Scroxton, N., Veiga-Pires, C., & SISAL Working Group Members. (2019). Evaluating model outputs using integrated global speleothem records of climate change since the last glacial. Climate of the Past, 15(4), 1557-1579.

Kaushal, N., Breitenbach, S. F., Lechleitner, F. A., Sinha, A., Tewari, V. C., Ahmad, S. M., ... & Henderson, G. M. (2018). The Indian summer monsoon from a speleothem δ18O perspective—a review. Quaternary, 1(3), 29.

Atsawawaranunt, K., Comas-Bru, L., Amirnezhad Mozhdehi, S., Deininger, M., Harrison, S. P., Baker, A., ... & Scroxton, N. (2018). The SISAL database: a global resource to document oxygen and carbon isotope records from speleothems. Earth System Science Data, 10(3), 1687-1713.

Kaushal, N., Kulkarni, P., Rawat, S., & Managave, S. Data-based evaluation of paleoclimate records from the terrestrial Indian region: Opportunities and gaps. 30 YEARS OF PAGES: PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, 50.

Teaching Experience

University of Oxford: Tutoring in two subjects: stable isotopes and paleoclimate.

Nanyang Technological University: Paleo-perspectives in biogeochemistry. 3-hour session with lecture and practical for a mixed class of undergraduate and PhD students