Nivedita Sairam

NH Natural Hazards

The 2026 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists is awarded to Nivedita Sairam in recognition of exceptional contributions to systemic modelling of compounding and cascading flood impacts.

Nivedita Sairam receives the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientist in the Natural Hazards Division in recognition of her exceptional contributions to systemic modelling of compounding and cascading flood impacts. Just two years after her PhD, Nivedita Sairam secured a prestigious junior research group grant from the German Ministry of Education and Research, which she started in 2023. Her current research group spans multiple disciplines, including public health, economics, statistics, engineering, and modelling, and comprises four PhD candidates and seven Master’s students.

Her team addresses the societally urgent and scientifically novel challenge of quantifying the health impacts of flooding under global change. Recent studies she has led have highlighted the psychological burden associated with flood evacuation and the broader effects of flooding on health-related wellbeing. These contributions reflect her strong expertise in systemic risk modelling and her commitment to collaborative, transdisciplinary research. The basis for the successful start of her junior research group 'Health Impacts of Floods (HI-CliF)' is her outstanding scientific expertise. Nivedita held a highly competitive PhD position within the Marie Curie European Training Network 'System-Risk'. Her impressive thesis on Bayesian modelling of flood impacts was awarded with the Allianz Climate Risk Research Award in 2020. As part of the core team of an international International Association of Hydrological Sciences initiative, she analysed 45 paired events to address the challenges and promote success stories of risk management. The results were published in Nature and the data made freely available via the data journal Earth System Science Data (ESSD) in 2023.

In addition to a strong publication record, she is also deeply committed to teaching and mentoring. She teaches Quantitative Methods and Water Security at Humboldt University of Berlin. Nivedita was nominated to the 2025 Helmholtz delegation to the European Parliament, where she communicated the societal impacts of weather extremes to policymakers. She was subsequently appointed to the EGU Task Force on Climate Hazards and Risk, led by the EGU Policy Team. Nivedita Sairam has made outstanding scientific contributions to the natural hazards field and will create greater impact in the future.