Rate My Professor Ritima Das

Dr. Ritima Das is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Pondicherry University. She holds a PhD in Shear wave velocity and anisotropy of crust beneath south India from CSIR-NGRI Hyderabad, awarded in 2016. As a seismologist, her research is aimed at understanding the complex structure of the Earth from the crust down to the transition to the asthenosphere and the deep mantle, encompassing present-day to ancient processes. She investigates the evolution and formation processes of continents and oceans using advanced geophysical tools, including high-resolution tomographic imaging via ambient noise and passive seismology, joint tomography of body and surface waves, receiver functions, joint inversions of surface waves and receiver functions or body and surface waves, crustal and mantle anisotropy, deep mantle mineralogy, and attenuation. Her research interests encompass seismology, tectonics, geophysical data modeling, inverse theory and its applications, and deep Earth mineralogy and attenuation.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Das served as a Ramanujan Fellow at the Centre for Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad, focusing on the structure and tectonics of the Indian Subcontinent and the adjoining ocean. She has also held Research Associate positions in seismology at the Earth and Climate Science department of IISER Pune, and at the Earth Sciences departments of the University of Cambridge and the University of Bristol. Key publications include "Deep Geology of south India inferred from Moho depth and Vp/Vs ratio" (Geophys. J. Int., 2015, with Utpal Saikia and S. S. Rai), "Extensive seismic anisotropy in the lower crust of Archean metamorphic terrain, South India inferred from ambient noise tomography" (Tectonophysics, 2017, with S. S. Rai), "Redefining Dharwar-Craton-Southern Granulite Terrain boundary in south India from new seismological constraints" (Precambrian Research, 2020, with S. S. Rai), "Crust and shallow mantle structure of south India by inverting interpolated receiver function with surface wave dispersion" (Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 2019, with Ashish and G. K. Saha), and "Possible magmatic underplating beneath the west coast of India and adjoining Dharwar craton" (Earth and Planet. Sci. Lett., 2017, with Utpal Saikia and S. S. Rai).