From PhD Student to Professor: Dian Indrawati to Join UNJANI Faculty as Professor in Climate Science and Hydrology
As a child, Dian Indrawati thought a future career as a physician awaited her. She wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, and medicine was a clear path to doing so. Now, in 2026, having just defended her PhD, she’s thankful to her parents who encouraged her to try engineering.
“Looking back, that decision ultimately opened opportunities that have allowed me to make meaningful contributions to society in ways I had never imagined,” Indrawati explained, highlighting how her civil and environmental engineering expertise is of critical importance to issues facing her native Indonesia. “As the world’s largest archipelagic country, with more than 13,000 islands and over 280 million people, Indonesia faces persistent challenges from its tropical climate and complex geography. Floods occur almost every year in many parts of the country, while drought threatens agriculture in other vulnerable regions. At the same time, limited resources constrain investments in resilient infrastructure. Climate change is intensifying these challenges, making the need for innovative, data-driven solutions more urgent than ever. These realities shaped both my perspective and my research aspirations as well as inspired me to dedicate my career to advancing water resources engineering and climate resilience.”
Indrawati began her academic journey at the Bandung Institute of Technology before joining Professor Auroop Ganguly’s Sustainability and Data Sciences (SDS) Laboratory at Northeastern University with a scholarship from the government of Indonesia. Ganguly is a leading global researcher in applying data science and artificial intelligence to problems of climate change and infrastructure resilience.
Among many activities during her time at Northeastern, she served as a Project Assistant Coordinator for the 2023 Dialogue of Civilizations program, participated in the fifth annual Flood Forecasting Meets Machine Learning Workshop by Google in 2022, delivered a guest lecture at Brown University in 2023, presented research at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in 2024, and joined the FLOW Workshop at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2025.
“Under Professor Ganguly’s mentorship, I expanded far beyond my comfort zone in hydrology, developing research at the intersection of atmospheric science, climate science, artificial intelligence, and especially machine learning,” said Indrawati. “He continually challenged me further to tackle interdisciplinary problems and pursue research with real-world impact.”
“It has been a pleasure to observe Dian grow from a motivated student to a mature researcher over the years. It is a unique honor that Dr. Indrawati is directly joining a tenured faculty position immediately after graduating with a PhD, an exceedingly rare achievement, and the only instance I know of,” Ganguly said.
Indrawati’s recent research focuses on applying artificial intelligence and data science to improve the understanding and prediction of climate-driven extreme events, particularly in data-scarce regions such as Indonesia. Following graduation from Northeastern University, she will return to Indonesia to join Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani as a faculty member with tenure in the Department of Civil Engineering, where she will teach hydrology and climate science. She has also been invited by Indonesia’s Ministry of Public Works to contribute as a water resources expert.
“As a recipient of a government scholarship, I believe it is both a privilege and a responsibility to bring the knowledge and experience I have gained back to my country. My long-term goal is to bridge cutting-edge research with public service, helping develop more resilient water systems and evidence-based policies that improve the lives of millions of people across Indonesia and the world in general.”