Biography
My research investigates drivers of observed climate change and projected changes in climate models. I am interested in both large-scale modes of variability such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and understanding how variables such as temperature and precipitation, that have impacts on the global population may change in the future. I have also worked on understanding uncertainties in our climate model projections, largely using single model initial-condition large ensembles (SMILEs). My current research focuses on understanding the dynamics, impacts and future projections of variability in the Pacific Ocean.
I completed my PhD at the University of New South Wales in September 2016 entitled "Natural drivers of Interannual to Decadal Variations in Surface Climate". For my PhD I won the Uwe Radok Award for the best PhD thesis awarded in 2016 in Australia in the fields of meteorology, oceanography, glaciology or climatology. I was then awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship to move to Germany to work at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. In this position, I was the manager of the Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble and used SMILEs to understand and disentangle uncertainty in climate projections. I then accepted a CIRES Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow Position at CU Boulder in the USA. In Boulder, my research largely focussed on the Impacts of ENSO on North America and how ENSO might change in the future. Since June 1st 2023 I am a DECRA/Research Fellow at the Australian National University.