MONSOONS PANEL

REGIONAL WORKING GROUP ON AMERICAN MONSOONS: MEMBERS

	Michelle Simões Reboita,Co-chair Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Brazil Dr Reboita is a Professor at Universidade Federal de Itajubá. Her research focuses on the South America Monsoon System (SAMS) and in the different types of cyclones near the South America coast. She is a member of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Climate Studies Group and Interdisciplinary Climate Investigation Center (INCLINE) at the University of São Paulo, and a coordinator of the Research and Extension Group in Social and Environmental Policies (GPEPSA-UNIFEI-CNPQ). She is one of the WCRP Regional Focal Points for South America. She is also currently serving as a member of WWRP Working Group on Tropical Meteorology Research. Read more...
	Caio Augusto dos Santoa Coelho,Co-chair Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Brazil Dr Coelho is a senior research scientist at Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC) of INPE and has research interests in the evaluation of how climate models represent the main features of the South American monsoon system. He has research and operational experience in sub-seasonal and seasonal predictions produced with numerical global climate models, including procedures for calibration, combination, and verification of these predictions. He has actively involved in a number International Projects, namely, EUROBRISA, ENSEMBLES, CLIMAX, CLARIS LPB, DEMETER, SPECS and S2S. Read more...
	Leila Carvalho (Co-Chair, CLIVAR/GEWEX Monsoons Panel) University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA Dr Carvalho is a Professor of Meteorology and Climatology in the Department of Geography and Researcher at the Earth Research Institute, UCSB. She has a B.S., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her research interests are in regional and large-scale climate variability and modeling, global climate change and scaling processes in geophysics. These topics include (but are not limited to) climate variation and change in monsoon regions, tropical-extratropical interactions, extreme precipitation and temperature, and regional modeling. Read more...
	Paola A. Arias (Co-Chair, GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel) Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia Dr. Arias is a Full Professor at the Environmental School at the Engineering Faculty in Universidad de Antioquia - Colombia. Her research focuses on climate variability and change in northern South America, particularly on atmospheric moisture transport and inter-hemispheric teleconnections in the region, including the American monsoons. Her most recent research has focused on the analysis and simulation of extreme precipitation and drought events in northern South America as well as the impacts of land cover changes (deforestation) in the hydroclimate of northern South America. She has a particular interest in gender-focused studies regarding climate change. She has been actively involved in outreach activities focused on climate change in Latin America not only from the physical science perspective but also from social and economical aspects. Currently, she is the Co-Chair of the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel and member of the Scientific Development Team of the WCRP My Climate Risk Lighthouse Activity. She was a Lead Author of the IPCC WGI AR5 Chapter 8, focused on water cycle changes. She also was Coordinating Author of the AR6 WGI Technical Summary, Summary for PolicyMakers, and Annex V on Monsoons. In addition, she was Review Editor of the AR6 Synthesis Report. Read more...
	Vasubandhu Misra (Member, CLIVAR/GEWEX Monsoons Panel) Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, USA Dr. Misra is a Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science and the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University. His research interests are in tropical meteorology and climate modeling which has led to studies in monsoons, tropical ocean variability, easterly waves, and tropical cyclones. He is also involved in climate application studies in hydrology, and regional and urban planning. Read more...
	Luis Brito-Castillo (Member, CLIVAR/GEWEX Monsoons Panel) Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste S.C. (CIBNOR), Mexico Dr. Brito-Castillo is a Senior Researcher, assigned to the Environmental Planning and Conservation Program of the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste S.C. (CIBNOR) where he obtained his Ph.D. in the Use, Management and Preservation of Natural Resources, specializing in Ecology, in 2003. He graduated as a Hydrologist engineer and Master of Engineering from the Russian State Institute of Hydrometeorology in St. Petersburg, Russia, graduating with honors from this institute in 1994. He is the author and co-author of 41 scientific publications, and 15 book chapters on various topics such as extreme events, drought and floods. He has supervised four Ph.D. theses, eleven M.Sc. theses and ten B.Sc. theses. He was an honorary member of the commission of experts on climate change, natural phenomena and risk prevention in 2013 and 2014, and of the commission of experts on earth sciences in 2012, 2014 and 2017 of CONACYT; of the Binational Consortium for Regional Scientific Development and Innovation with the University of Arizona, USA and National Council for the Humanities Science and Technology (CONAHCYT) of Mexico in 2014. At the invitation of SEMARNAT he was an honorary member of the evaluating jury to choose the Ecological Merit Award 2016, 2017 and 2018. He was a founding member of the Network of Disasters Associated to Hydrometeorological and Climatic Phenomena of CONAHCYT. He is a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers since 2001. His areas of interest are hydroclimatology, environmental impact and climate variability. Read more...
	Moetasim Ashfaq Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), USA Dr Ashfaq is a Research Scientist at ORNL. Monsoons have remained the central topic of his research throughout the research career. While his primary research-focus has been the South Asian summer monsoon, more recently he has broadened his focus on other regional monsoons, including the American and African monsoons. He led a CORDEX-based study that focused on South and North American monsoons, in addition to other seven monsoons across the globe. He has expertise in the use of global and regional climate models, and hydrological models for understanding climate variations in response to natural and anthropogenic forcing at varying timescales, and their implications for natural and human systems. Read more...
	Robin Chadwick Met Office & University of Exeter, UK Dr Chadwick holds a joint position as an Expert Scientist at the Met Office and as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter. His primary research focus is on tropical climate and its response to climate change. In particular, he is interested in how the tropical water cycle is changing on the regional scales relevant to climate change impacts, and how this is related to the dynamics of monsoons and circulations over tropical forests. He is a work package lead for the CSSP-Brazil project, which has improving the understanding and modelling of precipitation variability and change over South America as one of its main overarching objectives. He is PI of a current NERC project (ImPOse) examining the discrepancy between observed and modelled historical SST trends in the tropical Pacific, and co-I on a new NERC project (Bridge) which will examine the fundamental dynamics of regional monsoon circulations. Read more...
	Josefina Blázquez Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina Dr. Blázquez is a Professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and a permanent researcher at CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council). She obtained her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Her research focuses on climate variability and change over South America, using both regional and global climate models. She is also particularly interested in improving the reliability of climate projections for the region by conducting convection-permitting simulations to better understand the processes driving extreme events across South America. Read more...
	Fernanda Cerqueira Vasconcellos Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil Dr. Vasconcellos is a Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She graduated in Meteorology from UFRJ (2006) and earned both a Master's degree (2008) and a Doctorate (2012) in Meteorology from the National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Her research focuses on climate variability and modeling, specifically examining their impacts on the South American Monsoon System (SAMS). Dr. Vasconcellos is affiliated with the Group of Studies, Forecasts, and Climate Analysis (GEPAC/UFRJ) and the Mesoscale Prognostic Laboratory (LPM/UFRJ), where she develops weather and climate research. She also represents UFRJ in the Disciplinary Nucleus of Geotechnologies and Atmospheric Sciences (GyCA) within the Montevideo Group Universities Association. Additionally, she has collaborated with the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) in France. She is also involved in projects focused on the Antarctic climate and its impacts on South America, such as the Antarctic Modeling and Observation System 2 and Polar Connections. Dr. Vasconcellos has received a Young Woman Scientist grant and a Young Scientist Scholarship from the Rio de Janeiro State Agency (FAPERJ). Read more...
	Marcia Zilli University of Oxford, UK With a PhD in Geography (2017) from the University of California Santa Barbara (USA), Dr. Zilli is currently a postdoctoral research assistant at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford (UK). Her research focuses on understanding the dynamic and thermodynamic processes related to the formation of extensive cloud bands connecting the tropical source of moisture to the extratropics and the connections between these processes and the onset of the rainy season over subtropical regions. She is particularly interested in South America and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone due to its influence on the occurrence of floods and droughts over subtropical Brazil. Currently, she is interested in exploring the use of cloud band events as a proxy to seasonal and sub-seasonal total precipitation and frequency of dry spells, with the objective of improving the forecast of the rainy season onset over Southern Africa and South America.. Read more...
	Shaukat Ali SickKids Hospital, Toronoto, Canada Dr. Ali holds a PhD in Meteorology with 20 years of professional experience. He is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Child Health, SickKids Hospital, Toronto, Canada. He has also been serving as a Senior Scientific Officer at the Global Climate-Change Impact Studies Centre, Ministry of Climate Change, Islamabad, Pakistan. Dr. Ali has been a visiting scholar at several globally renowned institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy; the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria and the APEC Climate Center (APCC), Korea. He has successfully led and collaborated on numerous international initiatives funded by organizations such as the Wellcome Trust, APN and WCRP-CORDEX. He has organized and conducted a wide range of workshops and training programs around the world, aimed at building capacity in climate data analysis, downscaling techniques and science communication. Dr. Ali is also actively engaged in disseminating his scientific findings to policymakers and the general public through media platforms, policy briefs and public outreach initiatives. Read more...
	Renata Tedeschi Instituto Tecnológico Vale, Brazil Dr.Tedeschi holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and a master's degree in Environmental Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). She holds a PhD in Meteorology from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom. She is currently a researcher at the Vale Institute of Technology (ITV), where she conducts studies in the area of Climatology and Climate Change, with an emphasis on monthly precipitation forecasting and the impact of different teleconnection patterns on precipitation in areas of the North and Southeast of Brazil. Read more...
	Anita Drumond Instituto Tecnológico Vale, Brazil Dr. Drumond is a meteorologist with a Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo (USP) and currently serves as a postdoctoral researcher at Instituto Tecnológico Vale – Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ITV-DS), Brazil. Her research focuses on climate variability, atmospheric moisture transport, and extreme climate events. She has expertise in numerical modeling and teleconnections, such as ENSO. Dr. Drumond has held research and teaching positions at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), and the University of Vigo (Spain), where she coordinated the project Sequías y el Transporte de Humedad under Spain’s national R&D program. She has collaborated with Brazilian and international institutions and contributed to initiatives such as SALLJEX-SAMS and PROSUR. Her publications cover topics related to moisture transport and hydroclimatic variability. Read more...