Saji Abraham received the Ph.D. degree in Space Physics from the University of Delhi, Delhi, India, the M.Sc. degree in Space Physics from Andhra University, Waltair, India, the M.S degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering with major in Photonics from The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and the B.Sc. degree in Physics from Kerala University, Trivandrum, India.
Dr. Abraham has been supporting NASA projects since 1997. Currently, he is working with KBR at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. His research interests included in developing forward and retrieval algorithms for space-born radiometric applications.
He is currently supporting the calibration of Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) on The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which is the Nation's new generation polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system. JPSS is a collaborative program between NOAA and NASA. He supported NASA space mission projects, Aquarius and SMAP (Soil Moisture Active/Passive), for sea surface salinity and soil moisture applications.
Dr. Abraham is also actively involved in data analysis of soil freeze/thaw state through microwave remote sensing (eg: use the data from SMAP, SLAPEx (Scanning L-band Active Passive Experiment), GREX ( Goddard RF Explorer) and in-situ measurements). He used MODIS IGBP land cover data to classify the radiometric brightness temperature from AMSR-E and AMSR2 measurements and address the impact of forest and topography in the retrieval of physical parameters from microwave radiometry from space.
His expertise in interdisciplinary research activities included the basic theory of electromagnetic interaction with matter, radiative transfer theory, land/sea/ice thermal emission models, surface roughness, atmospheric and ionospheric emissions, Faraday rotation and polarization mixing, and celestial sky background that consist of solar, lunar, cosmic and galactic background emissions. He had been working on wide areas of ionosphere radio wave propagation techniques and published scientific articles on lower ionosphere dynamics and it’s coupling with the lower atmosphere through planetary waves and Quasi-biennial Oscillations.
Dr. Abraham is a senior member of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and a member of the American Geophysical Union.