Kartik Chandran is an environmental engineer and Professor at Columbia University.  He primarily works on the interface between environmental molecular and microbiology, environmental biotechnology and environmental engineering. The focus of his research is on elucidating the molecular microbial ecology and metabolic pathways of the microbial nitrogen cycle. Applications of his work have ranged from energy and resource efficient treatment of nitrogen containing wastewater streams, development and implementation of sustainable approaches to sanitation to novel models for resource recovery. Under his stewardship, the directions of biological wastewater treatment and biological nutrient removal were established for the first ever time in the history of Columbia University.

In 2012, Chandran was an invited presenter at the IDEAS lab at the World Economic Forum in Davos, focusing on sustainable urban development. 

In 2015, he received the MacArthur Fellowship for his innovative work on "integrating microbial ecology, molecular biology, and engineering to transform wastewater from a troublesome pollutant to a valuable resource".