Dr. Prathap Ramamurthy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Earth System Science & Environmental Engineering program at The City College of New York (CUNY). Since joining CCNY in 2015, Dr. Ramamurthy has led interdisciplinary research focused on understanding the complex relationship between climate, human activity, and the built environment in urban areas.
His research combines scalable field experiments with advanced numerical modeling to characterize the turbulent transport of mass, momentum, and energy in the urban boundary layer. A central focus of his work is investigating the drivers of urban heat island (UHI) intensity in large cities and its interaction with extreme heat events such as heatwaves. He is actively developing mitigation strategies to help moderate urban climate impacts and build more sustainable, resilient cities.
Dr. Ramamurthy’s lab also explores coastal urban boundary layer dynamics and how they influence convective clouds and thunderstorms—an area of growing importance in the context of climate change and coastal urbanization. He collaborates with the NOAA-CREST Center to operationalize remote sensing tools for urban climate research, expanding the capacity to monitor and model environmental conditions in densely populated areas.
His broader research interests include computational fluid dynamics, environmental fluid mechanics, building energy modeling, and urban meteorology. Through this work, he aims to develop science-based solutions to the challenges of climate adaptation and urban sustainability.
In addition to his academic and research roles, Dr. Ramamurthy is a member of the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Urban Environment and serves as an Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering. His contributions to urban climate science continue to inform both local policy and broader environmental resilience efforts.