We are proud to share that our alumnus, Munish Sikka (PFM 2009), has reached a significant milestone in his career at NASA’s GRACE-FO satellite mission. Munish has spearheaded the official release of two major open-science code repositories, showcasing the global impact of IIFM alumni in cutting-edge science and sustainability.
As a Principal Engineer who has dedicated the last 10 years to the GRACE mission, Munish co-authored these scripts alongside mission scientists. He will continue to manage these repositories for the organization, with additional specialized codes and new datasets slated for release later this year.
The newly released repositories include:
- GRACE Analysis Tutorials – Global Applications This repository provides the scientific community with the tools used to calculate monthly mass changes in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Global Ocean mass. It also includes total water storage calculations for the Colorado River basin—frameworks that are customizable for any river basin or ocean budget analysis worldwide.
- GRACE California Groundwater – Hydrologic Tracking This repository provides specialized code to track groundwater fluctuations using GRACE-FO satellite data. While focused on California, the code is designed to be adapted by researchers globally to monitor groundwater depletion and storage in any region.
Reflecting on this achievement, Munish shared: > “It is a dream come true to write official open-science scripts that calculate monthly mass changes over Greenland, Antarctica, and the Global Oceans. Helping develop groundwater calculation scripts that address critical questions for human civilization is incredibly rewarding.”
In a nostalgic nod to his roots, Munish chose to keep his public GitHub username identical to the account name originally assigned to him at IIFM—a testament to the lasting impact of his time at the institute. 
Please join us in congratulating Munish on this remarkable contribution to the global scientific community!
Feel free to connect with him directly and engage on sikka.munish@gmail.com