We are a committed team of engineers, scientists, and applied and computational mathematicians working toward a common goal of developing an Earth system model capable of accurate and precise climate predictions.
Our Team
Science and Engineering Team
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Anima Anandkumar
Machine Learning
Anima Anandkumar
Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech
- Ph.D., Cornell University, 2009
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Sajjad Azimi
Atmosphere Processes
Sajjad Azimi
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., EPFL, 2020
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Dynamical systems approach to turbulence
- Modeling cloud microphysics
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Eviatar Bach
Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Eviatar Bach
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park, 2021
- Data assimilation, climate dynamics, predictability, and dynamical systems
- Foster and Coco Stanback Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Environmental Science and Engineering
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Valeria Barra
Atmosphere Core/Software Engineering
Valeria Barra
Research Software Engineer, Caltech
- Ph.D., NJIT, 2018
- Computational mathematics and high-performance scientific computing
- Numerical methods for PDEs
- Computational fluid dynamics
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Jordan Benjamin
Atmosphere Processes
Jordan Benjamin
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S., MIT, 2019
- Clouds, microphysics, turbulence, and convection
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Tobias Bischoff
Atmosphere Processes
Tobias Bischoff
Senior Research Scientist, Caltech
- PhD., Caltech, 2016
- Senior Data & Applied Scientist at Microsoft, 2016-2019
- Subgrid-scale modeling for atmospheric processes
- Machine learning & AI approaches
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A. Anthony Bloom
Land Model
A. Anthony Bloom
Research Scientist, JPL
- Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, 2013
- Land biosphere model-data integration
- Terrestrial ecosystem carbon-climate feedbacks
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Renato Braghiere
Land Model
Renato Braghiere
Research Scientist, JPL/UCLA
- Ph.D., University of Reading, 2018
- Land Surface Modeling, radiative transfer theory, and biosphere-atmosphere interactions
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Dave Bonan
Atmosphere Processes
Dave Bonan
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S., University of Washington, 2019
- Climate dynamics, sea ice, ocean overturning, feedbacks
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Dmitry Burov
Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Dmitry Burov
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.Sc., Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 2013
- Experimental design approaches for optimal placement of high-resolution simulations
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Simon Byrne
Software Engineering
Simon Byrne
Lead Software Engineer, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2011
- Management of large and distributed software projects
- High-performance computing
- Statistics and machine learning
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Jean-Michel Campin
Ocean Core
Jean-Michel Campin
Research Scientist, MIT
- Ph.D., Université catholique de Louvain, 1997
- Computational fluid dynamics and ocean modelling; extensive experience developing ocean, sea-ice and atmospheric models
- Co-developer of the MITgcm ocean model
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Andy Charbonneau
Land Model
Andy Charbonneau
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.A., Princeton University, 2020
- Learning from data and AI
- Land model development (snow)
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Costa Christopoulos
Atmosphere Processes
Costa Christopoulos
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S., MIT, 2017
- Clouds and convection
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Valentin Churavy
Software Engineering
Valentin Churavy
Graduate Student, MIT
- B.Sc., University Osnabrück, Germany, 2015; M.Sc., MIT, 2019
- Compiler research for heterogenous high-performance computing
- Julia language development
- Distributed and accelerated computing for high-level programming languages
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Yair Cohen
Atmosphere Processes
Yair Cohen
Research Scientist, Caltech
- Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2016
- Process models for atmospheric turbulence, convection, and clouds
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Navid Constantinou
Ocean Processes
Navid Constantinou
Research Fellow, Australian National University
- Ph.D., National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 2015
- Dynamics of large-scale ocean circulation and mesoscale eddies
- Recipient of NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015; Recipient of Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, 2021
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Emily de Jong
Atmosphere Processes
Emily de Jong
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S.E., Princeton University, 2019
- Aerosol indirect effects
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Katherine Deck
Land Model
Katherine Deck
Senior Research Scientist, Caltech
- Ph.D., MIT, 2014
- Evolution of dynamical systems
- Inverse problems and learning from data
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Oliver Dunbar
Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Oliver Dunbar
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Warwick, 2017
- Experimental design approaches for optimal placement of high-resolution simulations
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Alan Edelman
Software Engineering
Alan Edelman
Professor of Applied Mathematics Computer Science, MIT
- Ph.D., MIT, 1989
- Software for high-performance computing, numerical linear algebra, random matrix theory
- Recipient of the Gordon Bell Prize and Householder Prize (1990), Chauvenet Prize (1998), Edgerly Science Partnership Award (1999), SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra Prize (2000), and Lester R. Ford Award (2005, with Gilbert Strang).
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Nat Efrat-Henrici
Software Engineering
Nat Efrat-Henrici
Schmidt Scholar, Caltech
- B.S., Computer Science, Harvey Mudd College, 2021
- Software engineering
- Microphysics
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Haakon Ervik
Atmosphere Processes/Data Assimilation
Haakon Ervik
Graduate Student, Caltech
- M.Sc., University of Bergen, 2020
- Subgrid-scale modeling for atmospheric turbulence, convection and clouds
- Inverse problems, stochastic modeling, and learning from data
- Recipient of Aker Scholarship and Fulbright Fellowship
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Raffaele Ferrari
Ocean Core and Processes
Raffaele Ferrari
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography; Director of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, MIT
- Ph.D., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 2000
- Theories of ocean turbulence and its impact on biogeochemistry and present/past climates
- Recipient of the Nicholas P. Fofonoff Award (American Meteorological Society), Robert L. and Bettie P. Cody Award (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
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Kristen Fahy
Land Model
Kristen Fahy
Science Systems Engineer, JPL
- M.Ed./B.S – Rutgers University, 2015
- Using systems engineering practices and tools to optimize efficiency for climate modelling projects, including project management tasks with the CliMA land model component at JPL.
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Christian Frankenberg
Land/Biosphere
Christian Frankenberg
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, Caltech; Research Scientist, JPL
- Ph.D., Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, 2005
- Carbon cycle; atmospheric CO2 and methane; space-based measurements of the biosphere
- Recipient of Macelwane Medal (AGU). AGU Fellow. NASA Early Career Achievement Medal
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Basile Gallet
Ocean Processes
Basile Gallet
Researcher, CEA Saclay, France
- Ph.D., Physics, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 2011
- Radiatively driven convection, wave-mean flow interactions, asymptotic methods in geophysical fluid dynamics
- Recipient of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Distinguished Scholar Award (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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Anna Gagné-Landmann
Land Model
Anna Gagné-Landmann
Visiting Student Researcher, Caltech
- B.Sc., Polytechnique Montreal, 2018
- Land surface processes
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Maria Geogdzhayeva
Ocean Core
Maria Geogdzhayeva
Student Researcher, MIT
- B.S., MIT, expected 2024
- Data assimilation for geophysical modeling
- Climate and weather extremes
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Jia He
Atmosphere Processes
Jia He
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., Georgia Tech, 2017
- Atmosphere dynamics; machine learning for weather prediction
- Parameterization of atmospheric turbulence, convection, and clouds
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Chris Hill
Ocean Core
Chris Hill
Principal Research Engineer, MIT
- Climate modeling, high-performance parallel computing
- Architect of the widely used MITgcm ocean model and Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF)
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Adeline Hillier
Ocean Processes
Adeline Hillier
Student Researcher, MIT
- Machine learning
- Parameterization of ocean convection
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Mike Howland
Atmosphere Processes/Data Assimilation
Mike Howland
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., Stanford University, 2020
- Data assimilation
- Atmospheric flow physics
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Daniel Z. Huang
Atmosphere Processes/Data Assimilation
Daniel Z. Huang
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., Stanford, 2020
- Computational mathematics
- Multiphysics
- Machine Learning
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Anna Jaruga
Atmosphere Processes
Anna Jaruga
Research Scientist, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Warsaw, 2017
- Cloud microphysics and cloud-aerosol interactions
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Sriharsha Kandala
Software Engineering
Sriharsha Kandala
Research Software Engineer, Caltech
- PhD., Illinois Institute of Technology, 2015
- Computational fluid dynamics and High-performance computing
- Software development
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Charles Kawczynski
Software Engineering
Charles Kawczynski
Senior Software Engineer, Caltech
- Ph.D., UCLA, 2018
- Computational fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics
- High-performance computing, machine learning
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Polina Khapikova
Atmosphere Processes
Polina Khapikova
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S., UC Davis, 2019
- Atmospheric and climate dynamics, climate extremes
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Oswald Knoth
Atmosphere Core
Oswald Knoth
Senior Scientist, TROPOS
- Ph.D., University of Halle, 1983
- Numerical methods for weather prediction
- Multirate time integration methods
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Paul Levine
Land Model
Paul Levine
Postdoc, JPL
- Ph.D., UC Irvine, 2019
- Biosphere-atmosphere transfer processes
- Water and carbon cycle interactions
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Zongyi Li
Machine Learning
Zongyi Li
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S., Washington University St. Louis, 2015
- Operator learning
- Machine learning for scientific computing
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Ignacio Lopez-Gomez
Atmosphere Processes
Ignacio Lopez-Gomez
Graduate Student, Caltech
- M.Sc., ISAE-SUPAERO, 2018
- Computational fluid dynamics; process models for atmospheric turbulence, convection, and clouds
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Shuang Ma
Land Model
Shuang Ma
Postdoc, JPL
- Ph.D., Northern Arizona University, 2019
- Terrestrial carbon cycle
- Representation of natural wetland methane emission in land system models
- Representation of below ground carbon cycle in land system models
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John Marshall
Ocean Core and Processes
John Marshall
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography; Director Climate Modeling Initiative, MIT
- Ph.D., Imperial College, 1980
- Ocean circulation theory; coupled dynamics of atmosphere and oceans; parameterization of ocean processes
- Architect of the widely used MITgcm ocean model
- Recipient of L.F. Richardson Prize (Royal Meteorological Society), Sverdrup Gold Medal and Bernhard Haurwitz Prize (both American Meteorological Society). Fellow of the Royal Society.
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Alexander Norton
Land Model
Alexander Norton
Postdoc, JPL
- Ph.D., University of Melbourne, 2019
- Terrestrial Carbon Cycling
- Carbon-Climate Feedbacks
- Data Assimilation
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Nicholas Nelsen
Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Nicholas Nelsen
Graduate Student, Caltech
- M.Sc., Caltech, 2020
- Emulation of high-dimensional input-output maps
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Grace O’Neil
Atmosphere Processes
Grace O’Neil
Graduate Student, MIT
- M.A., Columbia University, 2020
- Atmospheric Dynamics
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Lenka Novak
Atmosphere Processes
Lenka Novak
Research Scientist, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Reading, 2016
- Large-scale atmosphere dynamics; storm track dynamics
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Nicholas Parazoo
Land Model
Nicholas Parazoo
Research Scientist, JPL
- Ph.D., Colorado State University, 2011
- Terrestrial carbon cycling
- Carbon-climate feedbacks
- Atmospheric Transport
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Ali Ramadhan
Ocean Processes
Ali Ramadhan
Graduate Student, MIT
- M.S., University of Waterloo, 2017
- Atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere dynamics; biophysical ocean interactions
- High-performance computing and ocean model development
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Tapio Schneider
Atmosphere Processes
Tapio Schneider
Theodore Y. Wu Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, Caltech; Senior Research Scientist, JPL
- Ph.D., Princeton University, 2001
- Dynamics of atmospheres and climate changes, including changes in clouds, storminess, and extreme precipitation
- Named one of “20 Best Brains Under 40” (Discover Magazine), David and Lucile Packard Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.
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John Seinfeld
Atmosphere Processes
John Seinfeld
Louis E. Nohl Professor & Professor of Chemical Engineering, Caltech
- Ph.D., Princeton University, 1967
- Atmospheric chemistry and physics; aerosols
- Developer of first numerical model of atmospheric chemistry and air pollution
- Recipient of Tyler Prizefor Environmental Achievement. Member of the National Academy of Sciences
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Zhaoyi Shen
Atmosphere Processes
Zhaoyi Shen
Research Scientist, Caltech
- Ph.D., Princeton University, 2018
- Climate dynamics and aerosol-climate interactions
- Cloud dynamics and feedbacks
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Simone Silvestri
Ocean Processes
Simone Silvestri
Postdoc, MIT
- Ph.D., Delft University of Technology, 2021
- Computational fluid dynamics, turbulent heat transfer, large scale high fidelity simulations
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Clare Singer
Atmosphere Processes
Clare Singer
Graduate Student, Caltech
- B.S./B.A., University of Chicago, 2018
- Cloud feedbacks
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Julia Sloan
Software Engineering
Julia Sloan
Schmidt Scholar, Caltech
- B.S. Computer Science, Caltech, 2022
- Software design and development
- High-performance computing and parallelization
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Andre Souza
Ocean Processes
Andre Souza
Research Scientist, MIT
- Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2016
- Optimal control and scientific computing; turbulent heat transport theory and rare events in dynamical systems
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Akshay Sridhar
Atmosphere Processes
Akshay Sridhar
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., Caltech, 2018
- Subgrid-scale modelling of atmospheric turbulence and clouds
- Numerical techniques in earth-system modeling/high-performance computing
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Andrew Stuart
Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Andrew Stuart
Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech
- Ph.D., University of Oxford, 1986
- Bayesian learning and optimal combination of mechanistic models with data; data assimilation, inverse problems, and stochastic modeling
- Recipient of James Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing (SIAM), J. D. Crawford Prize (SIAM), Wolfson Research Merit Award (Royal Society)
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Paul Ullrich
Atmosphere Core
Paul Ullrich
Professor, UC Davis
- Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2011
- Numerical methods for global atmospheric models
- Global model evaluation
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Gregory Wagner
Ocean Processes
Gregory Wagner
Research Scientist, MIT
- Ph.D., UC San Diego, 2016
- Dynamics of waves and small-scale mixing in oceans
- Recipient of NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship
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Yujie Wang
Land Model
Yujie Wang
Postdoc, Caltech
- PhD, University of Utah, 2020
- Model development
- Leaf gas exchange
- Plant acclimation to the climate
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Ryan Ward
Atmosphere Processes
Ryan Ward
Graduate Student, Caltech
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John Worden
Land Model
John Worden
Principal Scientist, JPL
- Ph.D., University of Colorado, 1996
- Remote sensing of atmospheric composition and assimilation of these data into global models for investigating the carbon and water cycle
- JPL Earth Sciences Section Manager 2014 – 2017
- NASA Aura TES PI 2010 – 2014
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Jinlong Wu
Atmosphere Processes, Data Assimilation/Machine Learning
Jinlong Wu
Postdoc, Caltech
- Ph.D., Virginia Tech, 2018
- Turbulence modeling
- Statistical models and machine learning techniques
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Yan Yang
Land Model
Yan Yang
Postdoc, JPL
- Ph.D., Boston University, 2017
- Model development and data assimilation
- Vegetation remote sensing
- Statistical analysis and machine learning
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Dennis Yatunin
Software Engineering
Dennis Yatunin
Software Engineer, Caltech
- B.S., Caltech, 2020
- High-performance computing and numerical methods
Project Management and Coordination
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Cheikh Mbengue
Project Management, Product Development and Public Outreach
Cheikh Mbengue
CliMA Project Manager
- Ph.D., Caltech, 2015
- Atmospheric Dynamics and Predictability, Chaotic Systems, Climate modeling, Climate-Change Dynamics and Impacts, Climate and Society
- 2006 Rhodes Scholar
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Leilani Rivera-Dotson
Program Coordination, Research Administration
Leilani Rivera-Dotson
CliMA Program Coordinator, Caltech
- B.A., UH Mānoa, 2005
- Higher education and research administrative support
- Facilities management
- Meeting and event planning
- Outreach support
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Ashlee Zhang
Finance
Ashlee Zhang
CliMA Finance Assistant; Grants Manager, Caltech
- B.A., UC San Diego, 2014
- Financial management
- Financial forecasting and budgeting
