Who doesn’t like a good thunderstorm? Well, I like thunderstorms so much that I have made them the focus of my academic research. And I am fortunate enough to work in a fantastic community with hundreds of people who share my passion. We usually refer to the subject with many different names, such as deep moist convection or precipitating convection, but they all pretty much mean the same thing: thunderstorms.
Apart from the amazing pictures that it provides, I am passionate about deep convection for two main reasons: first, it has tremendous societal implications (just think about the damages that extreme precipitation can cause); second, it is incredibly challenging to study and model from a theoretical perspective. The field itself is very rich as, although humankind has experienced precipitating convection since the dawn of time, there are still countless many aspects of it that we don’t understand.
The questions that I aim to answer with my work are primarily related to extreme precipitation and severe weather, and how these threats will respond to the climate change we are facing. My training in Theoretical Physics has taught me that the best way to be tackle extremely complex systems, such as supercell storms, is to start by considering simpler systems and understand the basic dynamics that control them. This is why I have started my experience at Harvard by considering “simple” thunderstorms over the ocean in radiative-convective equilibrium and without large-scale organization. Their simplicity allowed an in-depth understanding of the fundamental dynamics of deep convection, and gave me the chance to develop techniques and methodologies that I will soon apply to severe weather and extreme precipitation events.
If you want to hear more about my work, please feel free to contact me!
