Skip Navigation
Search for People:
Search for Projects:

Sreelekha Jarugula

Photo of Sreelekha Jarugula

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 300-323

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

Click here

Member of:

Ocean Circulation And Air Sea Interaction

JPL Postdoctoral Fellow

Employed By

Caltech/JPL

Biography

Hi! I’m a Physical Oceanographer interested in understanding the upper ocean processes and air-sea interaction using observational data from several platforms like moorings, remote-sensing satellites research ships and reanalysis. During my PhD, I have been on a few research cruises in the Bay of Bengal (basin in the northern India Ocean). The sea-going experience made me fall in love with the ocean and inspired me to continue to work with ocean observations. I’m excited to join Dr. Severine Fournier’s group at JPL and work on the linkages between global coastal sea surface salinity and the hydrological cycle. Prior to JPL, I worked as NRC postdoctoral researcher at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). My research at PMEL was focused on understanding: (i) Mixed layer response to post-monsoon cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and, (ii) Coastal salinity variability in the south Equatorial Atlantic Ocean.

Education

  • 2020: PhD in Physical Oceanography – Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India.
  • 2012: M. Tech in Climate Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India.

Professional Experience

  • March 2023- present: JPL Postdoctoral Fellow
  • May 2021- Feb 2023: NRC Postdoctoral Researcher at NOAA PMEL, Seattle, USA.
  • Aug 2012-Aug 2013: Research Assistant at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

Community Service

  • 2021-Present: Reviewer for Journal of Physical Oceanography, Journal of Marine Systems, Marine Geodesy and Ocean Dynamics.

Research Interests

  • Upper ocean processes
  • Air-sea interaction
  • Land-sea exchanges
  • Tropical cyclones

Selected Awards

  • 2021-2023: National Research Council (NRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship.
  • 2013-2020: Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Scholarship to pursue PhD at IISc.
  • 2010-2012: MHRD Scholarship to pursue Masters in Climate Science at IISc.

Selected Publications

  1. Jarugula, S., Sengupta, D., Shroyer, E., & Papa, F. (2024). Mixing of rain and river water in the Bay of Bengal from basin-scale freshwater balance. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2023GL106451.
  2. Fournier, S., Reager, J. T., Chandanpurkar, H. A., Pascolini-Campbell, M., & Jarugula, S. (2023). The salinity of coastal waters as a bellwether for global water cycle changes. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2023GL106684.
  3. Jarugula, S., & McPhaden, M. J. (2023). Indian Ocean Dipole affects eastern tropical Atlantic salinity through Congo River Basin hydrology. Communications Earth & Environment, 4(1), 366.
  4. Simoes-Sousa, I. T., A. Tandon, J. Buckley, D. Sengupta, Sree Lekha. J., E. Shroyer, & S. P. d. Szoeke, 2022: Atmospheric Cold Pools in the Bay of Bengal. J. Atmos. Sci., 80, 167–180.
  5. Jarugula, S. L., & McPhaden, M. J. (2022). Ocean mixed layer response to two post-monsoon cyclones in the Bay of Bengal in 2018. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 127, e2022JC018874.
  6. Sree Lekha, J., Lucas, A. J., Sukhatme, J., Joseph, J. K., Ravichandran, M. & Suresh Kumar, N., et al. (2020). Quasi-biweekly mode of the Asian summer monsoon revealed in Bay of Bengal surface observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125, e2020JC016271.
  7. Ratheesh, S., Agarwal, N., Chaudhary, A., Lijin, J., Sree Lekha, J., Mathur, M., ... & Kumar, R. (2020). Response of a high-resolution ocean circulation model to winds from different sources in simulating summer monsoon freshening in the North Bay of Bengal: A case study. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 172, 104727.
  8. Weller, R. A., Farrar, J. T., Seo, H., Prend, C., Sengupta, D., Sree Lekha, J., ... & Venkatesen, R. (2019). Moored observations of the surface meteorology and air–sea fluxes in the northern Bay of Bengal in 2015. Journal of Climate, 32(2), 549-573.
  9. Jampana, V., Ravichandran, M., Sengupta, D., D’Asaro, E.A., Rahaman, H., Joseph, S., Sree Lekha, J. & Chaudhuri, D. (2018). Shear flow instabilities and unstable events over the North Bay of Bengal. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 123(12), 8958-8969.
  10. Sree Lekha, J., Buckley, J. M., Tandon, A., & Sengupta, D. (2018). Subseasonal dispersal of freshwater in the northern Bay of Bengal in the 2013 summer monsoon season. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 123(9), 6330-6348.
  11. Chakrabarti, R., Mondal, S., Acharya, S. S., Sree Lekha, J., & Sengupta, D. (2018). Submarine groundwater discharge derived strontium from the Bengal Basin traced in Bay of Bengal water samples. Scientific reports, 8(1), 4383.
  12. MacKinnon, J. A., Nash, J. D., Alford, M. H., Lucas, A. J., Mickett, J. B., Shroyer, E. L., Waterhouse, A. F., Tandon, A., Sengupta, D., Mahadevan, A., Ravichandran, M., Pinkel, R., Rudnick, D. L., Whalen, C. B., Alberty, M. S., Sree Lekha, J., Fine, E. C., Chaudhuri, D., & Wagner, G. L. (2016). A Tale of Two Spicy Seas. Oceanography, 29(2), 50–61.
  13. Weller, R. A., Farrar, J. T., Buckley, J., Mathew, S., Venkatesan, R., Sree Lekha, J., Chaudhuri, D., Kumar, N. S., & Kumar, B. P. (2016). Air-Sea Interaction in the Bay of Bengal. Oceanography, 29(2), 28–37.
  14. Sengupta, D., Bharath Raj, G. N., Ravichandran, M., Sree Lekha, J., & Papa, F. (2016), Near-surface salinity and stratification in the north Bay of Bengal from moored observations, Geophysical Research Letters, 43, 4448–4456.

Projects

NASA Ocean Salinity Science Team Project