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Inspirit santa fe6/24/2023 What is one of the challenges of climate modeling? So it was that: a combination of really wanting to go to New York, and having a good relationship with my advisor who also realized what my strength was. thesis, even though it was very applied, it was also very math-heavy. He was from a very good theoretical background – very much interested in fluid dynamics and geophysical fluid applications – so even though I felt uncomfortable studying a system that I knew very little about – I didn't even understand how physicists thought about things, and coming from math, you have to cross that – he was a good mentor because he understood where I was coming from. There were two people in applied math with an atmospheric focus and I basically started talking with one of them and liked him. That department is very diverse: applied physics, materials science, medical physics. The department doesn't make you decide what you want to do in the first year, so you have some time to figure out who you want to work with. I didn't apply to earth sciences because I was completely unqualified I had never taken an earth science course. We had a lot of discussions – and I always knew I wanted to go to New York for grad school – so I applied to Columbia in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. He was doing research in something that I thought I might want to do, which was applying epidemiological models to studying behaviors and social systems. When I was at SFI, I met someone who was a professor at Columbia at that time. How did your interest shift from epidemiology to climate science? I'm quite interested in that part of the problem and how it might change the future climate. This can happen via changes in ozone and it can just be variations occurring from year to year. What goes on up in the stratosphere has a big impact on earth's surface climate. In particular, the component of the earth system modeling that I do is really oriented at studying the stratosphere. Then using that model to inform projections, which we deliver to governments. There are also applications to exoplanets and to paleoclimates, but the work I do is centered around the development and application of the theory and the numerics behind that model. Our goal at GISS is to develop a climate model that we can use to make projections of future climate. Your current research is very much about a complex system. You look in all directions and it's just an expanse. You go there and, like, the view! I was from the east coast and I had never seen views like that. I just remember being in that environment – it was so moving. it just seemed obvious that SFI was the place to pursue that. I was always interested in different things. Even though most of my courses in undergrad were in math - applied or pure - I've always been interested in the arts. I remember having lunch and sitting down next to this old man and then realizing after the fact that it's Cormac McCarthy and just being stunned. What do you remember about your time at SFI? As an undergraduate, you're very much trying to figure out what to do with your life and what you're interested in. That's what initially compelled me to go to SFI. And what was nice about SFI is that I could develop my own project and work with a mentor on that. So via that experience, I became more aware of what was happening at SFI and was like "I really really want to do that", to continue those ideas but also branch out. The summer before, I had been at an REU in Los Alamos, at the national lab, looking at mathematical epidemiology, R 0 and such. I had never come across a program like that. Now everything is interdisciplinary, but at that time (not that it was so long ago), Santa Fe's UCR was so unique. I remember at that point being open to doing anything that was theoretical in spirit, and very open to interdisciplinary projects. I was an applied math major at Brown, but at that time, I hadn't yet chosen the concentration – like chemistry or biology. Why did you decide to do an undergraduate research experience at SFI? She was an Undergraduate Complexity Researcher (UCR) at SFI in 2006. ![]() from Columbia University her graduate and postdoctoral studies were supported by NASA fellowships. She also holds a faculty appointment at Columbia University. ![]() Clara Orbe is a Research Physical Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, a small division within NASA Earth Sciences that is oriented toward predicting long-term climate change.
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