News Teaching Publications Group Research
UMD

Our News

☁ [October] Maria J. Molina is joining AGU's Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES) as an Associate Editor.

☁ [October] Maria J. Molina was featured on the AMS blog, The Front Page, for Hispanic Heritage Month. [Read More]

☁ [September] Jonathan Starfeldt and Maria J. Molina are presenting this week at the 6th NOAA AI Workshop, which focuses on heat resilience this year. Read more [here]!

☁ [September] Dean Calhoun was awarded an NCAR Exploratory Computational Allocation for his project titled, "Quantifying Inequity in Data-Driven and Physics-Based Weather Models."

☁ [September] Kyle Hall was awarded an NCAR Exploratory Computational Allocation for his project titled, "Discovering and Quantifying Causal Relationships in Interannual Coupled Processes within the CESM2 Large Ensemble."

☁ [September] Maria J. Molina (PI; AOSC) and Christopher A. Metzler (co-PI; CS) were awarded an NSF Collaborations in Artificial Intelligence and Geosciences (CAIG) grant. Read more [here]!


Summer 2024

☁ [August] Erin Evans graduated with an MS degree from AOSC. Congratulations, Erin!

☁ [August] The PARETO group participated in the Reddit "Ask Science" Ask Me Anything Series hosted by UMD CMNS. Check it out [here]!

☁ [August] Sunny Sharma, formerly based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, has joined our research group as an AOSC graduate student. Welcome, Sunny!

☁ [August] Emily Wisinski completed the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Tutorial at NSF NCAR. Way to go, Emily!

☁ [July] Maria J. Molina was interviewed by the New York Times, "Artificial Intelligence Gives Weather Forecasters a New Edge." [Link]

☁ [July] Maria J. Molina was interviewed by Science News to discuss the new movie, "Twisters." [Link]

☁ [July] Alexander ("Sandy") J. Kerr (CS; undergraduate) and Luke Wichrowski (AOSC and CS; undergraduate) have joined our research group. Dr. Manuel Titos (Postdoc; University of Granada, Spain) is also visiting us for the summer. Welcome, Manuel, Sandy, and Luke!

☁ [June] Emily Wisinski and Maria J. Molina presented at the "Tropical Cyclones, Medicanes, and Climate Change” programme (TROPICANA) at the Institut Pascal in Paris-Saclay, France.

☁ [May] Jhayron S. Perez Carrasquilla, Emily Wisinski, and Maria J. Molina participated in the NSF and NASA funded "Workshop on Impacts of Unusual Weather Events and Climate Anomalies on Amazon Rainforest" at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) in Manaus, Brazil.

☁ [May] Hannah Bao graduated from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science with a Bachelor of Science degree. Congratulations, Hannah! Hannah will be continuing her studies at UMD in the Master's of Professional Studies in Data Science and Analytics program.

☁ [May] Jhayron S. Perez Carrasquilla and Maria J. Molina participated in the AMS Washington Forum which was held in the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. [Link]

☁ [May] Maria J. Molina participated in a workshop on the potential for AI to transform weather prediction jointly hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and NOAA. [Read More]

☁ [May] Maria J. Molina will serve a four-year term on the US CLIVAR Predictability, Predictions, and Applications Interface (PPAI) Panel.


Spring 2024

☁ [April] Emily Wisinski earned the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Award for her project titled, "Identifying Precursors to El Niño False Alarm Events." We are so incredibly proud of you, Emily!

☁ [April] Kyle Hall, from NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, will be joining our research group at UMD AOSC as a PhD Student next Fall 2024. Welcome to our team, Kyle!

☁ [April] Jon Starfeldt, from University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be joining our research group at UMD AOSC as a PhD Student next Fall 2024. Welcome to our team, Jon!

☁ [March] Dean Calhoun, from Purdue University, will be joining our research group at UMD AOSC as a PhD Student next Fall 2024. Welcome to our team, Dean!

☁ [March] Emily Wisinski was selected to participate in the NOAA Women in Science Leadership Workshop to be held next month in Princeton, NJ. Congrats, Emily!

☁ [February] Maria J. Molina earned the NASA Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science Award for the project titled, "Quantifying urban heat using satellite-based estimation with machine learning."

☁ [February] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for winning the Dr. Richard Payne Graduate Fellowship from the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS), made possible in partnership with the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). We are so proud of you, Jhayron!

☁ [February] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for winning the 2nd place Best Student Oral Presentation Award from the AMS 23rd Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Science for “An Earth-System-Oriented View of the S2S Predictability of Weather Regimes.” Amazing work, Jhayron!

☁ [January] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for being selected as an Advanced Study Program (ASP) Graduate Visitor Program (GVP) participant! Jhayron will be visiting NCAR in Boulder, Colorado during summer 2024 to conduct research! Way to go, Jhayron!


Fall 2023

☁ [December] Congratulations to Emily Wisinski for earning the Helmut Landsberg Scholarship Award: Outstanding Service to the Graduate Program. Extremely well-deserved; we are so proud of you, Emily!

☁ [October] Our group will be attending the AMS Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD! Our schedules have been announced:
- Hannah’s poster, “Enhancing predictability of Southern California precipitation using a multi-input-multi-output autoencoder network,” is on Monday, January 29th at 3:00pm ET.
- Emily’s poster, “Identifying precursors to spring El Niño false alarms,” is on Tuesday, January 30th at 3:00pm ET.
- Maria’s talk, 9A.1 “When machine learning objectives compete for improved subseasonal bias correction, who wins?”, is on Wednesday, January 31st at 8:30am ET.
- Jhayron’s talk, 10A.2 “An Earth-system-oriented view of the S2S predictability of weather regimes,” is on Wednesday, January 31st at 11:00am ET.
- Jhayron and Maria will participate on a panel with others (led by Amy McGovern) titled, J13.1 “Using AI creatively in the classroom: lessons learned,” which is on Thursday, February 1st at 8:30am ET.
- Erin’s poster, “Investigation of meteorological fields and satellite data relevant for model prediction of lightning flashes and lightning NOx production,” is on Thursday, February 1st at 3:00pm ET.

☁ [October] Emily Wisinski was awarded an NCAR Exploratory Computational Allocation for her project titled, "Identifying Precursors to El Niño False Alarm Events."

☁ [October] Cumulus was featured as October's Lab Mascot of the Month by the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) at the University of Maryland. Way to go, Cumulus! [Link]


Summer 2023

☁ [August] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for being selected to serve on the WCRP Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Fresh Eyes on CMIP working group!

☁ [August] Hannah Bao, rising senior in AOSC, has joined our research group and will be co-advised by Salil Mahajan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Welcome, Hannah!

☁ [July] Erin Elise Evans, rising second year AOSC MS student, has joined our research group and will be co-advised by Dale Allen. Welcome, Erin!

☁ [June] Maria J. Molina appeared on the AMS Clear Skies Ahead Podcast and discussed what it entails to change careers from broadcasting to research, what it is like mentoring the next generation of researchers in the weather, water, and climate sciences, and the unique challenges that come with working as a bilingual meteorologist. [Link]

☁ [May] Maria J. Molina will serve as a member of the Scientific Steering Group (SSG) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) for the Earth System Modelling and Observations (ESMO) Core Project starting this June. [Link]


Spring 2023

☁ [April] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for making it to the finals of the Annual AOSC Ping Pong Championship!

☁ [April] Incoming PhD Student, Emily Wisinski, was awarded the prestigious UMD Flagship Fellowship. Way to go, Emily!

☁ [April] Emily Wisinski, from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, will be joining our research group at UMD AOSC as a PhD Student next Fall 2023. Welcome to our team, Emily!

☁ [March] Congratulations to Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla for passing his PhD comprehensive exam! Well done, Jhayron!

☁ [February] Assistant Professors Maria J. Molina (AOSC) and Chris Metzler (CS) were awarded a UMD Grand Challenge Team Project Grant for "Effective and Equitable Weather Forecasting in a Changing Climate with Machine Learning." [Read more]

☁ [January] Current undergraduates in the Department of Computer Science, Varun Vishnubhotla, Bhuvan Jammalamadaka, and Siddharth Cherukupalli, have joined our research group. Welcome!

☁ [January] Maria J. Molina will participate in the Convergence Research (CORE) Institute, which is funded by the NSF Convergence Accelerator. 2023 CORE Fellows will focus on "Tackling Climate-Induced Challenges with AI."

☁ [January] Maria J. Molina was elected to the AMS Artificial Intelligence Applications to Environmental Science STAC (Scientific and Technological Activities Commission) Committee.


Fall 2022

☁ [December] Maria J. Molina received an NCAR Education, Engagement, and Early-Career Development (EdEC) Special Recognition Award for "outstanding work in support of the NCAR Explorer Series."

☁ [December] Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla and Maria J. Molina will be presenting at the AGU Fall Meeting in Chicago on December 12-16.
Jhayron's talks are:
A55L-1261 - Back-trajectories analysis for characterizing the origin and spatio-temporal variability of precipitation in Colombia, and the implications for the local electrical energy markets
A34C-06 - Use of two operational ML models for forecasting 24-hours-average PM2.5 concentration in the Aburrá Valley, Colombia, using global forecasts and satellite information
Maria's talks are:
A45H-05 - Classification and Detection of Organized Convection using Deep Learning (Invited)
GC16C-03 - Defying Chaos Theory: Using Machine Learning to Extend Earth System Prediction (Invited)

☁ [November] Maria J. Molina is now an Affiliate Faculty with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).

☁ [October] A partnership between the state of Maryland and the University of Maryland to build and operate a network of 75 weather-observing towers (the Maryland Mesonet) has been announced. Our group will contribute analysis with Prof. Poterjoy, Prof. Nigam, and State Climatologist Dr. Alfredo Ruiz-Barradas that will help with the siting analysis in collaboration with the Maryland Department of Emergency Management. [Link]

☁ [September] Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla was awarded a graduate student small-allocation by NCAR for the project titled, "Using deep learning for subseasonal predictability of weather regimes over North America in CESM2."

☁ [September] Maria J. Molina was featured in Maryland Today, "Flipping the Channel: New Professor Left Cable News for Climate Data Science." [Link]


Summer 2022

☁ [August] Rising UMD senior, Heather Fettke von Koeckritz, has joined our research group. Heather is pursuing dual degrees in mechanical engineering and AOSC. Welcome, Heather!

☁ [August] Maria J. Molina will be presented the AMS Editor's Award (Weather and Forecasting/Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology) at the 2023 AMS Annual meeting in Denver, Colorado in January. The award citation reads "For multiple high-quality, thorough, and rapid reviews."


Spring 2022

☁ [February] Early access to the NCAR Derecho Supercomputer awarded via the NCAR Accelerated Scientific Discovery proposal. Large allocation of GPU resources will be used for the project, "Deep Learning-based Large Ensemble for Subseasonal Prediction of Global Precipitation," led by Maria J. Molina and co-led with Katie Dagon.

☁ [January] UMD AOSC PhD student, Jhayron Steven Perez Carrasquilla, will be joining our research group this coming Fall 2022. Welcome, Jhayron!


MRG