Anusha Rammohan

"Anusha Rammohan believes that the intersection of the digital and physical worlds is the ideal space for disruptive innovations. And that’s exactly what attracted her to the esoteric domain of flow analytics for multi-phase flow metering in the oil and gas industry.

As the lead engineer at GE Global Research’s John F Welch Technology Center in Bengaluru, Anusha got the opportunity to combine physical sensors with advanced analytics to develop a solution capable of radically transforming the processes of the entire industry. “As the global energy demand continues to increase, there is an urgent need in the oil and gas industry to be more efficient with resources, people and investments to reduce the cost of producing oil while doing so safely with reduced environmental impact,” says Rammohan. Her innovation addresses this need by combining sensor and device data in the field using intelligent analytics to provide accurate and reliable information in real time about oil production. For instance, she says, timely information about well and field level production of oil, water and gas allows operators to make critical decisions related to optimizing pumps, allocating resources and energy to each well, shutting down or stimulating wells, and preventing leakage and blockage of pipes, etc. By transforming data into actionable insights, her analytics solution enables increased oil recovery, reduced human intervention and improved resource planning.

Not merely restricting her innovation to a single industry, the next stop for Anusha is to extend it to applications in industries such as aviation, power and transportation. The applications include performance optimization of assets, health monitoring of safety-critical components and their increased reliability and reduced downtime—all of which can significantly improve productivity and bring down costs.

Rammohan has been granted patents related to her work in image mapping, sensor positioning and flow measurement; she has filed for more. She dreams of a world powered by analytics and technologies such as artificial intelligence—one in which “autonomous decision making” would greatly reduce the ambiguity, uncertainty and human subjectivity that are currently proving to be bottlenecks in all industries."