{"id":7824,"date":"2026-08-26T17:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/?p=7824"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:16:04","slug":"crest-doctoral-students-participate-in-the-2026-water-prediction-innovators-summer-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/?p=7824","title":{"rendered":"CREST Doctoral Students Participate in the 2026 Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

CUNY CREST congratulates Ali Haider, Ph.D. Candidate in Civil Engineering at The City College of New York (CCNY), and Niloufar Soheili, Ph.D. Candidate in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at CCNY, <\/strong>on their participation in the 2026 Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute <\/strong>(WPI-SI) at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa from June 8 through July 22. The WPI-SI is a collaborative program between The University of Alabama and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI).<\/p>\n

Ali was part of Team FIMrough<\/strong>,<\/strong> where his project focused on improving how floods are predicted and mapped using NOAA\u2019s Height Above the Nearest Drainage (HAND)-based Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM)<\/strong> framework. The team tested whether letting roughness vary with stage, separating flow inside the channel from flow spreading across the floodplain produces more accurate inundation maps. They calibrated and rebuilt the synthetic rating curves behind those maps with stage-dependent roughness, calibrated them against observed flood extents, and used geospatial analysis and machine learning to tie the calibrated values back to watershed characteristics. The team began in watersheds across North and South Carolina, then extended the work to the Texas Gulf Coast. The calibrated curves improved inundation estimates over the constant-roughness baseline. The next question is the harder one: whether these relationships still hold in basins where streamflow observations are sparse or missing entirely, which is the case for most stream reaches the model forecasts on.<\/p>\n

Niloufar was part of the Ensemble Streamflow Forecasting for Real-Time Flash Flood Prediction within the NextGen Framework<\/strong>\u00a0project, which addressed the challenge of rainfall forecasts misplacing storms by about 100 km and potentially predicting floods in the wrong basin. The team developed NCET (Neighboring Catchment Ensemble Technique)<\/strong> to generate a range of possible flood outcomes from a single model run by using streamflow from neighboring catchments, weighted by the likely direction and distance of storm shifts. Tested on the May 27, 2018 Ellicott City, Maryland flash flood, NCET recovered a flood that the single deterministic forecast largely missed. The findings showed that storm location matters more than catchment similarity, offering a faster, lower-cost approach to real-time flash flood forecasting within the NextGen framework.<\/p>\n

From this experience, Ali learnt how to turn a research question into a practical flood-modeling approach within a short, intensive research period. He said, \u201cThe experience strengthened my skills in flood modeling, geospatial analysis, Python-based data processing, machine learning, and scientific communication, while giving me greater exposure to large-scale flood prediction and mapping in the United States.\u201d These skills complement Ali\u2019s Ph.D. research at CCNY and CREST, where he uses AI and multiple data sources to improve urban flood prediction and mapping. Beyond research, Ali valued the opportunity to collaborate with researchers from different universities, build lasting professional connections and friendships, and experience the culture and community of Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Niloufar gained hands-on experience running the NextGen stack and troubleshooting multi-model runs on Jetstream2 and locally. This work directly supports her CCNY dissertation on probabilistic urban flood modeling for New York City while also strengthening her skills in collaborative coding and presenting technical research to broader audiences. She said, “This was my first collaborative modeling project of my PhD and it gave me both a new method to build on along with a network of collaborators I expect to keep working with.”<\/span><\/p>\n

To successfully complete the program, Ali and his team carried their project through the full research process, from defining the research problem and developing their approach to analyzing results and communicating their findings. The team prepared a final research report and presented their work during the program\u2019s concluding Capstone presentation, fulfilling the requirements for Ali to earn his certificate of completion. Niloufer and her team completed a full project report, presentations, an American Geophysical Union (AGU) abstract, and documentation for collaborators.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ali is thankful to his Ph.D. advisor, Prof. Reza Khanbilvardi, for encouraging his participation in WPI-SI and providing mentorship that strengthened his foundation in hydrology, remote sensing, machine learning, and flood modeling. He said, Dr. Khanbilvardi\u2019s support continues this program as the team works to expand and evaluate its research across the contiguous United States (CONUS).\u201d He added, \u201cCUNY CREST Institute has also been central to my development as a researcher, providing mentorship, computational resources, interdisciplinary collaboration, and opportunities to connect my research with real-world environmental challenges. His experience at CREST prepared him to contribute to WPI-SI while bringing back new technical knowledge, collaborators, and research perspectives to his work at CCNY. Further, Ali expressed his appreciation for his Team FIMrough teammates, Santiago Henao-G\u00f3mez (University of Iowa), Alemayehu Dula Shanko (Florida International University), and Armen Konialian (University of California, Los Angeles), as well as theme leads Prof. Sagy Cohen and Dr. Anupal Baruah of The University of Alabama, and the Summer Institute mentors, instructors, and organizers for their guidance and collaboration. Beyond the research, Ali highlighted the friendships, professional connections, and sense of community developed during the Summer Institute, making WPI-SI a particularly meaningful part of his Ph.D. journey.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Niloufar expressed her appreciation to her Ph.D. advisor, Prof. Reza Khanbilvardi, for encouraging her participation in WPI-SI and supporting her throughout the program. She shared that Dr. Khanbilvardi \u201cwas the one who pushed me to apply from the start,\u201d recognizing the value of early opportunities to build collaboration and networking skills and explore different research directions. She also credited the CREST Institute, her \u201cresearch home and the foundation for this experience,\u201d for providing the training in remote sensing and hydrology. Niloufar further thanked her teammates, Amirhossein Montazeri, Mohammad Mosavat, and Aldo Andres Tapia Araya; theme leads Dr. Humberto Vergara and Dr. Mohamed Abdelkader of the University of Iowa; and Dr. Sagy Cohen of the University of Alabama, Deputy Director of CIROH and programmatic lead for the Summer Institute, for their collaboration and guidance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CUNY CREST congratulates Ali Haider, Ph.D. Candidate in Civil Engineering at The City College of New York (CCNY), and Niloufar Soheili, Ph.D. Candidate in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_elementor_edit_mode":"","_elementor_template_type":"","_elementor_data":"","_elementor_page_settings":null},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlight","category-news"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7824"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7838,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824\/revisions\/7838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crest.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}