Mission control at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
I am currently a Climate Scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand in Wellington, New Zealand. My current research interests involve climate modelling and extreme events, including what drives these events and how they are projected to change as the climate system continues to warm. I am also interested in how machine learning can be used alongside more traditional dynamical models for increasing the resolution of future climate projections to aid various stakeholders and applications.
After completing my PhD at the CCRC, I went on to do a postdoc at NASA-JPL in Pasadena, California (2017-2020). There I was involved in a range of different areas of research including climate model evaluation with remotely sensed data from satellite, as well as subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting of drought, and other data science projects. After leaving JPL (where I pretended to be a rocket scientist) I moved to San Diego to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (where I pretended to be an Oceanographer). My work at Scripps, within the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, continued to focus on seasonal drought prediction in support of water resource management in California.
My PhD experience at the CCRC gave me a strong foundation in climate science, both in terms of the technical skills needed to do climate research today as well as the underlying theoretical knowledge of the climate system. I was fortunate to be able to tap into the broad expertise of different supervisors at the CCRC, which opened my eyes to the various subfields of climate research that I am involved in today. My PhD experience at the CCRC allowed me to travel internationally to workshops which helped build connections and ultimately my confidence to apply for postdoc positions further afield. Perhaps most importantly, I had a very enjoyable time at the CCRC and made several ongoing friendships and collaborations.
