Dr. Sai Ravela

Principal Research Scientist, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), MIT

Dr. Sai Ravela is a Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the Earth Signals and Systems Group. He brings broad experience from both academia and industry across the fields of Systems Science, Climate Science, and Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Ravela’s research centers on computational sustainability and climate risk, with a particular emphasis on extreme events such as cyclones, floods, and earthquakes. His work spans AI-driven exposure and vulnerability mapping, agentic impact modeling, and game-theoretic approaches to decision-making. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to coastal risk quantification in Bangladesh, with broader applications in disaster response and resilience planning for the energy and agriculture sectors. Dr. Ravela advances a new Co-Active Systems Theory—a novel framework that couples models, data, and human insight to build adaptive observatories and support environmental stewardship. Recent applications include soil salinity mapping networks, and earlier work focused on designing uncrewed aerial systems for real-time observation of extreme atmospheric events.

Additionally, Dr. Ravela contributes to computer vision for conservation science through the successful Sloop system, and to foundational work in dynamics, optimization, and learning systems aimed at real-world impact. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003, specializing in vision, robotics, learning, and information retrieval. He then completed postdoctoral training at MIT in nonlinear stochastic systems. Dr. Ravela holds over 125 publications and patents and received MIT’s Infinite Kilometer Award in 2016 for exceptional research and mentorship. He also serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Windrisktech LLC, which has pioneered statistical-physical modeling of cyclone-induced risk since 2005. Outside of research, Dr. Ravela is an avid gardener, an instrument-rated pilot, and a proud father of a gifted baseball player.