Peetak Mitra

Summary:
I’m a Kolkata native, San Francisco-based technologist passionate about leveraging AI to combat climate change. I am on the Founding Team of Excarta, a venture-backed startup building a breakthrough AI-powered weather intelligence platform for businesses. Excarta is proud to be backed by some of the biggest venture firms in the world.

More about me:
I am a Ph.D. trained technologist with a focus on using SciML (Scientific Machine Learning) for weather/climate applications. Before joining Excarta, I was a Member of Research Staff at famed Silicon Valley based Xerox PARC, where I built SciML tools for various applications including climate and energy for projects funded by DARPA and NASA. During my Ph.D. from UMass Amherst, I co-founded the ICEnet Consortium, a SciML effort that leveraged AI to develop predictive machine learning algorithms to improve engine design, helping create fuel-efficient engines capable of meeting stricter environmental regulations. The ICEnet consortium partners included NVIDIA, MathWorks, and Siemens among others. I am also a former core team member of Climate Change AI, a global non-profit that catalyzes impactful work at the intersection of climate change and machine learning. My early Ph.D. research included developing reduced order models (ROM) for advanced propulsion systems, working in close collaboration with U.S. DOE national laboratories - Argonne National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, in a $2.1 million industry funded project, Spray Combustion Consortium. My models have been implemented within commercial software code Converge CFD, and are in use by major automotive engine makers from around the world.

I currently live in San Francisco, California with my wife and cat and in my free time, enjoy going on long bike rides, runs and hikes in Northern California.

I am keen on sharing advancements in ML and climate modeling with technical and non-technical audiences. I have had my talks and lectures featured at OpenAI, MIT, NVIDIA, National Science Foundation, Bloomberg TV, NeurIPS, MILA, Department of Energy (DoE) labs etc. on AI x Climate.