Research

Areas of Research Interest

  • Global Water Cycle and Hydrological Extremes;
  • Hydrometeorology; Hydroclimatology;
  • Land-Atmosphere Coupling; Ecosystem-Climate Interactions;
  • Artificial Intelligence for Earth System Science;
  • Climate Change; Regional and Global Climate System Modeling;
  • Climate Impact Assessment (water resources, food security, and human health);
  • Land Use Modeling and Prediction

Current Projects

  • Examining differential drought responses of forest trees with phylogenies and process-based catchment water age modeling (2023-2026, NSF, with PI James Knighton)
  • Understanding the Role of Vegetation in Flash Drought Early Warning and Predictability (2023 – 2026, NASA)
  • Extreme Precipitation Scaling with Temperature across Weather-Climate Timescales and the Role of Land Surface Feedback (2022-2025, DOE)
  • NRT: Building resilient landscapes for food, energy, water, and ecosystems in America’s megalopolis (2020-2025, NSF, with PI Mark Urban)
  • Collaborative Research: SitS NSF UKRI: Decoding Nitrogen Dynamics in Soil through Novel Integration of in-situ Wireless Soil Sensors with Numerical Modeling (2020-2023, NSF, with PI Baikun Li)

Completed Projects

  • Understanding the decrease of precipitation extremes at high temperatures and its implications (2017-2023, NSF)
  • Recent Changes in the Form, Frequency, and Amount of Cold-Season Precipitation in New England and Their Impact on Streamflow Dynamics (2021-2022, USGS/CT IWR)
  • Climate adaptation and resiliency planning for protection of public drinking water (2016-2017, CIRCA/CT DPH, with PI Kirchhoff)
  • GAANN: Environmental Engineering at the Forefront of Water Science, Policy, and Education (2015-2018, Department of Education)
  • PIRE: Taming Water in Ethiopia – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Improve Human Security in a Water-Dependent Emerging Region (2015-2020, NSF, with PI Anagnostou)
  • Hydraulic redistribution of water through plant roots – Implications for carbon cycling and energy flux at multiple scales (2012-2016, DOE/Marine Biological Lab.)
  • Dynamic vegetation feedback and regional climate predictions over West Africa (2011-2016, NSF)
  • A pilot project on interactive land use and climate predictions (2011-2015, NSF)
  • Incorporating satellite remote sensing data into hydrological models (2014, NASA/CT Space Grant)
  • Ecological impacts from the interactions of climate change, land use change, and invasive species in New England (2008-2012, USDA-EPA, with PI Silander)
  • Soil moisture-vegetation-precipitation feedback over North America: the search for observational evidence (2008-2012, NOAA CPPA)
  • Understanding the dynamic land-atmosphere system: Multiple climate equilibria and climate variability. (2005-2010, NSF)
  • Response of the land climate system to hydrological and radiative forcing. (2003-2007, NASA/Georgia Institute of Technology)
  • Impact of dynamic root water uptake and seasonal vegetation variation on surface hydrological processes. (2004-2007, NASA GEWEX)
  • Incorporating satellite observation of precipitation characeteristics into land surface modeling. (2005-2007, NASA ESSF)
  • Role of soil moisture and vegetation feedback in seasonal prediction of precipitation over the Mississippi River Basin. (2003-2007, NOAA GAPP/CPPA)