Research:
Graduate Research:
I currently work under the advisement of Drs. Brian Tang and Kristen Corbosiero. My research focuses on how upper-tropospheric troughs affect TC intensity change, particularly rapid intensification. I recently published a paper in Monthly Weather Review focusing on how upper-tropospheric troughs affect the intensification rate of newly formed tropical cyclones, which can be read here: Fischer et al. (2017)
My PhD work seeks to address the overarching question of whether the characteristics tropical cyclone rapid intensification events depend upon the environmental regime in which a tropical cyclone is situated. More specifically, do rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones that interact with upper-tropospheric troughs have different convective and environmental characteristics than those cyclones that rapidly intensify without a nearby trough?
Undergraduate Research:
My undergraduate experience at Florida International University provided me the opportunity of working with Dr. Haiyan Jiang's research group. This work focused on using microwave satellite imagery, specifically the 37-GHz channel of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, to assess future intensity changes in tropical cyclones.
The 37-GHz channel is extremely helpful in analyzing TC structure since it can detect not only the presence of ice in convective and stratiform clouds, but also emission from liquid hydrometeors. This makes 37-GHz imagery more desirable than using other common frequencies that are not as sensitive to liquid hydrometeors, such as 85 GHz.
