Ali Behrangi

Short Biography

I joined the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona as an associate professor in January 2018. My doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine was on developing high-resolution precipitation products using satellite images and my postdoctoral work at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was on analysis of cloud and precipitation products from multiple sensors. As a NASA JPL scientist (2012-2018) I was involved in several projects (as principal investigator or co-investigator) on various topics including precipitation retrieval, pathfinder for microwave sounding instrument, tropical cloud and precipitation, water and energy budget studies, GRACE based water storage anomaly, hydrologic modeling, extreme weather and climate studies, mission concept and proposal development, and using diverse data sets across multiple disciplines to quantify precipitation amount and distribution over cold regions. I co-led efforts for extending the application of the Atmospheric Infrared Sensor data to drought monitoring in support of the U.S. drought monitor. Current research within my group at the University of Arizona follows my previous interests and, given the recent project grants, will also include advancing the global precipitation climatology project in high latitudes using diverse data sets. I also contribute to the efforts in support of the Earth Dynamics Observatory goals at the University of Arizona, the international precipitation working group (IPWG), and WCRP/GEWEX weather and climate extreme grand challenges.