CREST participated in the 105th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting from January 12 to 16, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. CREST Executive Director, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi; CUNY CREST HIRES Director, Dr. Shakila Merchant, CREST External Advisory Board Member, Everette Joseph; Director of the CUNY CREST Business Development and Entrepreneurship Pillar, Harry Cikanek; CREST Faculty and NOAA EPP MSI Cooperative Science Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies II (CESSRST II) Director, Dr. Fred Moshary, NOAA EPP/MSI CESSRST II Distinguished Research Scientist, Dr. Mitch Goldberg; CREST Faculty affiliate and Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Naresh Devineni; CREST Faculty affiliate and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Prathap Ramamurthy; CREST Research Scientist, Dr. Issac Moradi, CREST Stakeholder Engagement and Community Outreach Pillar Associate Directors, Drs. Hamid Norouzi & Reginald Blake; and CREST doctoral student, Ms. Shima Kamali (Water Resources Engineering) attended the meeting.
The theme of the meeting was Towards a Thriving Planet: Charting the Course Across Scales and the goals included assessing how the state-of-science, -practice, and -art can be brought to bear in addressing the afore-mentioned challenges; and identifying remaining challenges that need to be resolved in the journey to achieve resilient communities and a thriving planet. As the co-chair of the Conference, Dr. Shakila Merchant along with Ms. Staci Dreschyver and the Education Committee members organized 19 sessions covering nearly 100 research abstracts submitted by researchers and educators in the fields of atmospheric and earth sciences, including one presidential session and 3 joint sessions focused on weather, social science and risks communications. The 4 days annual AMS meeting was well attended by more than 5000 professionals from US and across the globe. Dr. Merchant also presented the HIRES programs 10 years in retrospect during the 34th Conference on Education.
During the meeting, Ms. Kamali presented her research poster titled Using Machine Learning Methods for Urban Flood Modeling in New York City. It showcased a part of her PhD research; applying advanced machine learning techniques and integrating diverse datasets to enhance flood prediction and management strategies in urban settings. Ms. Kamali confidently answered questions that were posed to her by visitors during the session.
Ms. Shima Kamali with her mentor, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi
Mr. Cikanek is working with colleagues at George Mason University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading faculty teams at the three institutions to develop the Center for Climate Risk Applications (CCRA) Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC). Each site has an NSF Grant funded by NSF and NOAA. They are hosting a planning meeting with up to 100 attendees from the Insurance, Reinsurance, and Finance Industries at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) Auditorium on March 3 and 4th as a required step toward submitting a Phase I Center Proposal. At the 105th AMS Annual Meeting, Mr. Cikanek presented results to date of their planning and findings from ‘customer discovery’ interactions with industry using lean start-up methodology. He Cikanek said, “Climate Change is negatively impacting these industries by causing current methods which they use to predict risk to fail to sufficiently predict risk as weather, water and climate events extremes depart from historical trends. As an example of impacts, the insurance industry is suffering unprecedented losses for homeowners’ insurance across the US , and more and more dwellings are becoming uninsurable. The CCRA is being proposed to perform pre competitive research to address these impacts of climate change.”
Mr. Harry Cikanek during his presentation
Dr. Reginald Blake received the 2025 Charles E. Anderson Award at the conference. This honor celebrates Dr. Blake for being a ‘selfless champion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPoC) students, an inspiring mentor, and a treasured colleague who enriches Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) efforts in the atmospheric sciences.’ CREST congratulates Dr. Blake for his efforts and for inspiring others to contribute towards the STEM community.
The meeting was engaging and a valuable experience for several CREST leaders, members, and students. Dr. Khanbilvardi commented, “Conferences like AMS is a unique opportunity for our faculty and students to showcase our scientific achievement in an international venue, and network with many potential collaborators”
