Mr. Sagar Filipe Wankhede, a PhD Research Scholar from the Dept. of Civil Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, MAHE was awarded the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) Early Career Researcher (ECR) award recently. This award covered his to and fro travel and accommodation in Svalbard, near the North Pole. This award was granted to him to present his research during the Polar Night Week conference, held at Longyearbyen, Svalbard.  He spent one month in the Arctic, at the international observatory SIOS between January 20 and February 20, 2023, presenting his research paper and interacting with the researchers of SIOS.  He presented his work on the mapping of Himalayan and Arctic glaciers using various image processing tools.  His work is expected to improve understanding of the melting properties of the glaciers, in the context of global warming.

Mr Sagar was the only recipient of this travel award from Asia, and the first person to travel to Svalbard, Arctic from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

SIOS is an international consortium comprising of 28 member institutions across 10 countries. It is a consortium for facilitating access, data, and funding to work in the freezing high Arctic Archipelago.