Ritesh Gautam received the Ph.D. degree in earth system and geoinformation sciences from George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, in 2008. He is a Senior Physical Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in Washington DC, USA. Prior to joining EDF, he was an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay from 2014 to 2017 in the Center of Studies in Resources Engineering as well as an affiliate faculty in the Interdisciplinary Program in Climate studies. He previously worked at the Climate and Radiation Laboratory of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from 2009 to 2014, as a Research Scientist with Universities Space Research Association. His research interests include atmospheric aerosols and their climate effects, remote sensing of aerosols, clouds, snow, and spatio-temporal analysis of multisensor satellite observations. He has also conducted and participated in field experiments focused on characterizing aerosol radiative effects in south and southeast Asia.