Cohort Level: Cohort - II

Career Goal: Work for NOAA or NOAA affiliates in a project management role. I want to lead water resource and climate resiliency projects.

Expected Graduation Date: January 1, 2022

Degree: PhD Civil Engineering

Research Title: Season ahead flood forecasting using climate information

Research Synopsis: The goal of my research is to develop a new framework for categorizing and predicting flood risk in the United States using climate information. This methodology aims to understand regional, simultaneous floods from a coherent view to forecast risk of extreme flooding. To achieve this, the research is sectioned into three main objectives: (1) to improve our understanding of regional, coherent floods based on extreme occurrences and develop a metric to characterize regional, simultaneous flood events (i.e. Compound Flood Index – CFI), (2) model the coherent flood events using significant climate information and variables, and (3) demonstrate an application of the flood index and model for seasonal flood risk and management. This research will use the Northeastern U.S. region as a case study. The novelty of this predictive model for risk is the stochastic, data-driven methodology from the lens of concurrent extreme floods, versus individual river/stream flood events, informed by climate information. The ultimate goal of this research is to improve flood forecasts, from a regional scale, to mitigate the impacts associated with these extreme events.