Designation: Assistant Professor
Department: Mining Engineering
Email: maitreyamohan[at]iitism[dot]ac[dot]in
Contact Number:
Office Number: +91-326-223-5233
Personal Page: Click Here
About Me: I graduated with honors from the Department of Mining Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela in 2016 and received my Ph.D. in Geoinformatics and Natural Resources Engineering from the Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2024 through the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship Program (PMRF). During my Ph.D., I also have an experience as a Visiting Research Fellow through the PhD Sandwich Scholarship in one of the state-of-the-art remote sensing laboratories at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. My areas of specialization include Remote sensing, Geographical Information System, Digital Image Processing with research interests of endmember identification, characterization and quantification in mining and mineral domain, application of remotely sensed datasets for ore estimation, modelling hyperspectral mixing and unmixing of geological mixtures, spatial-spectral super-resolution, earth, rock and soil spectroscopy and modelling digital twins for smart mining implementing artificial intelligence/machine learning. I have previously served in the mining industry, working in Coal India Limited (2016 to 2018) and further as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Hebrew University (2023 to 2025).
Research Interest: Mineral mapping, Spectral mixing and unmixing, Geological spectroscopy, Artificial intelligence, Machine learning
NMNC514: Advanced Surveying Practical
NMND502: Geospatial Technologies for Natural Resources
NMND507: UAV Data Mapping and its Applications
MNC307: Numerical Modelling/Remote Sensing and GIS Laboratory
MND409: Geographic Information System
NMND510: Modelling and Analysis of Geospatial Data
July 2025 and continuing: Assistant Professor at the Department of Mining Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India
Oct 2023 to July 2025: Postdoctoral Researcher at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
PI: Dr. Ittai Herrmann, research:
Apr 2021 to May 2022: Visiting Research Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Supervisor: Dr. Ittai Herrmann, research:
July 2018 to Dec 2023: Ph.D. in Geoinformatics and Natural Resources Engineering (GNR) at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
Supervisor: Prof. Alok Porwal
Ph.D. Topic: Modelling Spectral Unmixing for Geological Mixtures
July 2012 to June 2016: Bachelor of Technology in Mining Engineering, from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela
Supervisor: Prof. B.K. Pal
B.Tech. Project: Opencast Mine Modeling, Grade Optimization using Surpac, and Haul Road Optimization
Aug 2016 to July 2018: Assistant Manager at Coal India Limited
Job Role: Coal production, machinery supervision, manpower and materials management.
Sahoo, M.M., Herrmann, I. and P.V., Arun. 2026. Explainable Ante-hoc Approaches for EO Data Analysis: Opportunities and Challenges. In Explainable AI for Earth Observation Data Analysis: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges, edited by Arun P.V., Jocelyn Chanussot, B Krishna Mohan, D Nagesh Kumar, Alok Porwal, 148-166. Florida, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003597025
Karubakee, S., Dash, R., Pradhan, S. K., Patra, A. K., Biswal, S., Panda, N., Sahoo, M.M., Babu, P.M. and Adak, T. 2026. Unveiling rhizobacterial diversity in rice-maize systems in response to penoxsulam-pendimethalin application. BMC Plant Biology, 26(1), 412. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-026-08278-3
Mishra, A., Krief, A., Sahoo, M.M., Schachter, A., Gonda, I., Dudai, N., Trigano, T. and Herrmann, I. 2026. Pre-and post-harvest spectral estimation of carnosic acid and rosmarinic acid in rosemary. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 244, 111501, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2026.111501
Mishra, A., Krief, A., Sahoo, M.M., Schachter, A., Gonda, I., Dudai, N., Trigano, T. and Herrmann, I., 2026. Spectroscopic analysis reveals an opposite pattern between carnosic and rosmarinic acid concentrations in rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus). Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 350, 127392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2025.127392
Cohen, I., Avnit, A., Sahoo, M.M., Hak, H., Perez-Sancho, J., Spiegelman, Z. and Efroni, I., 2025. Transient restriction of intercellular communication is required for root tip regeneration. Current Biology, 35, 3638–3649.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.047
Sahoo, M.M., Tarshish, R., Tubul, Y., Sabag, I., Gadri, Y., Morota, G., Peleg, Z., Alchanatis, V. and Herrmann, I., 2025. Multimodal ensemble of UAV-borne hyperspectral, thermal, and RGB imagery to identify combined nitrogen and water deficiencies in field-grown sesame. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 222, 33–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2025.02.011
Sabag, I., Bi, Y., Sahoo, M.M., Herrmann, I., Morota, G. and Peleg, Z., 2024. Leveraging genomics and temporal high-throughput phenotyping to enhance association mapping and yield prediction in sesame. The Plant Genome, 17(3), e20481. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20481
Sahoo, M.M., Kalimuthu, R., PV, A., Porwal, A. and Mathew, S.K., 2023. Modelling Spectral Unmixing of Geological Mixtures: An Experimental Study Using Rock Samples. Remote Sensing, 15(13), 3300. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15133300
Sahoo, M.M., Perach, O., Shachter, A., Gonda, I., Porwal, A., Dudai, N. and Herrmann, I., 2022. Spectral estimation of carnosic acid content in in vivo rosemary plants. Industrial Crops and Products, 187, 115292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2022.115292
Pattathal V, A., Sahoo, M. M., Porwal, A. and Karnieli, A., 2022. Deep-learning-based latent space encoding for spectral unmixing of geological materials. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 183, 307–320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.11.008
Sahoo, M.M. and Pal, B.K., 2017. Geological modelling of a deposit and application using Surpac. Journal of Mines, Metals, and Fuels, 65(7), 417–422.
Sahoo, M.M., Behera, B., Bisoyi, S.K. and Pal, B.K. 2026. A comparison of lateritic bauxite mapping indices using multispectral and hyperspectral remotely sensed data, in: MINEXCHANGE- 2026 SME Annual Conference and Expo, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 22-25 February 2026.
Sahoo, M.M. and Arun, P.V., 2025. Remote sensing-based detection of coal mining areas: A study integrating multispectral and hyperspectral data. Presented at DIGMIN 2025: Digital Intelligence for Green Mining and Industrial Networks, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, India, 12-13 September 2025.
Sahoo, M. M., Tarshish, R., Sabag, I., Gadri, Y., Morota, G., Peleg, Z., Alchanatis, V. and Herrmann, I., 2025. Sesame yield prediction using UAV-borne hyperspectral imagery, crop traits and genotype category, in: Stafford, J. V. (Ed.), Precision Agriculture ’25. Wageningen Academic, Barcelona, Spain, pp. 546–552.
Sahoo, M.M., Tarshish, R., Tubul, Y., Sabag, I., Gadri, Y., Morota, G., Peleg, Z., Alchanatis, V. and Herrmann, I., 2025. Integrating multimodal remote sensing and artificial intelligence to distinguish combined nitrogen and irrigation treatments in sesame. Presented at 44th EARSeL Symposium, Prague, Czech Republic, 26–29 May 2025.
Sahoo, M.M., Tarshish, R., Alchanatis, V. and Herrmann, I., 2024. Comparing hyperspectral and thermal UAV-borne imagery for relative water content estimation in field-grown sesame, in: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Precision Agriculture. International Society of Precision Agriculture, Manhattan, KS.
Sahoo, M.M. and Pal, B.K., 2024. A novel approach to remotely detect coal mining sites using hyperspectral images, in: IGARSS 2024 - 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., Athens, Greece, pp. 4876–4879. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10642544
Sahoo, M.M., Tarshish, R., Sabag, I., Peleg, Z. and Herrmann, I., 2024. Sesame yield prediction using hyperspectral reflectance: Determining spectral features and their timeline trends, in: IGARSS 2024 - 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., Athens, Greece, pp. 1514–1517. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10641238
Sahoo, M.M., Rajendran K., Arun P.V., Mathew, S.K. and Porwal A. 2023. Modelling spectral mixing for geological mixtures: Detecting nonlinearly mixed pixels in hyperspectral image of banded hematite quartzite. In IGARSS 2023- 2023 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Pasadena, California, USA, IEEE, pp. 7606–7609. https://doi.org/10.1109/igarss52108.2023.10283193
Arun, P.V., Sahoo, M.M. and Porwal, A. 2023. Graph neural network based interpretable spectral unmixing for hyperspectral unmixing hyperspectral IIRS data onboard Chandrayaan-2 mission. In IGARSS 2023- 2023 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Pasadena, California, USA, IEEE, pp. 4202–4205. https://doi.org/10.1109/igarss52108.2023.10283097
Arun, P.V., Sahoo, M.M., Suresh, S. and Porwal, A., 2023. Interpretability and explainability of hyperspectral image classification techniques for lunar surface mapping. In NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF)-2023, University of Maryland, Maryland, USA.
Sahoo, M. M., Rajendran, K., Pattathal Vijayakumar, A., Mathew, S. K. and Porwal, A., 2023. Evaluation of Spectral Mixing Techniques for Geological Mixture in a Laboratory Setup: Insights on the nature of mixing, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12226, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12226
Sahoo, M.M., Singh, S., Rajendran K., Porwal, A., Paul, D. and Mathew, S.K. 2023. Modelling spectral unmixing for planetary surfaces: Mapping anorthite and olivine-rich regions on a lunar surface, In IPSC 2023 Volume of Abstracts, Indian Planetary Science Conference 2023, Ahmedabad, India, 22–24 March 2023.
Sahoo, M.M., Kalimuthu, R., Arun, P.V., Mathew, S.K. and Porwal, A., 2022. SAM guided Half Siamese network model for endmember variability based spectral unmixing of geological materials, IN12B-0266 presented at 2022 Fall Meeting, AGU, Chicago, IL, USA, 12-16 December 2022.
Sahoo, M. M., Pattathal Vijayakumar, A., Herrmann, I., Mathew, S. K. and Porwal, A., 2022. Estimation of point spread function for unmixing geological spectral mixtures, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-8712, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-8712
Sahoo, M.M., Perach, O., Shachter, A., Gonda, I., Porwal, A., Dudai, N. and Herrmann, I., 2022. Carnosic acid content estimation by hyperspectral reflectance of field grown Rosemary plants. In 2022 7th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 27–30 September 2022.
Sahoo, M. M., Tarshish, R., Tubul, Y. and Herrmann, I. 2022. Spectral estimation of nitrogen content in in-vivo sesame leaves using regression techniques, In The First Research Conference of the Israeli Scientific Association for Fruits and Vegetables, Rehovot, Israel, 10 April 2022.
Sahoo, M. M., Tarshish, R., Tubul, Y. and Herrmann, I. 2022. Estimation of nitrogen content in sesame with a comparative analysis, In The First Annual Conference for M.Sc. and Ph.D. Students at the Faculty of Agriculture, Rehovot, Israel, 21 February 2022.
Sahoo, M. M., Arun, P. V. and Porwal, A., 2021, March. Support Vector Machines for Unmixing Geological Mixtures. In 2021 11th Workshop on Hyperspectral Imaging and Signal Processing: Evolution in Remote Sensing (WHISPERS), IEEE, 9484054. https://doi.org/10.1109/WHISPERS52202.2021.9484054
Sahoo, M.M. and Porwal A., 2020. Modelling Spectral Mixing of Rocks: A Machine Learning Approach, Abstract No.: 3077-2568. In 36th International Geological Congress, Geosciences: The Basic Science for a Sustainable Future (p. 4013), Delhi, India, 2-8 March 2020.
Hyperspectral differentiation of bauxite deposits in mining regions, Faculty Research Scheme, IIT (ISM), Dhanbad (ongoing)
Scientific Assessment of Old and Dangerous Workings of BCCL Mines (Phase-1), awarded by Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Dhanbad (ongoing)
M.Tech. students guiding:
B.Tech. students guiding:
