CW3E Welcomes Ivette Hernández Baños
October 21, 2022
Ivette Hernández Baños joined the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) as a Machine Learning and Atmospheric Data Assimilation Scientist in October 2022. In this position, Ivette will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to create algorithms that leverage CW3E’s innovative observational capabilities. She will bring unique expertise in data assimilation to complement CW3E’s numerical modeling team, contributing to the development of the Joint Effort for Data Assimilation Integration (JEDI) system interfaced with the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) and the incorporation of state-of-the-art satellite observations for optimizing forecasts of atmospheric rivers. In particular, she will focus on the assimilation of airborne radio occultation (ARO) observations that are collected during the Atmospheric River (AR) Reconnaissance (AR Recon) campaigns and their impacts on the analyses and forecasts of atmospheric rivers.
Ivette earned her B.S. in Meteorology from the Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences (InSTEC), Havana, Cuba (2013) and her M.S. in Meteorology from the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Sao Paulo, Brazil (2017). She completed her PhD in December 2021 also at INPE under the guidance of Dr. Luiz Fernando Sapucci. Throughout her Ph.D studies, she conducted collaborative research with scientists at NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory and NCAR as part of the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) Visitor Program in Boulder, Colorado. During this time, Ivette investigated the data assimilation framework for the prototype Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) through the simulation of a typical spring squall line over central US and an Amazon coastal squall line case during the 2020 Amazon dry season. She assessed the hybrid three dimensional ensemble–variational data assimilation (3DEnVar) algorithm and various configurations in the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) analysis system for their impacts on RRFS analyses and forecasts of the two squall line cases.
In September 2021, Ivette started at NCAR’s Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology (MMM) Laboratory in the Prediction, Assimilation and Risk Communication (PARC) division as an Associate Scientist. Throughout her work at MMM, she gained experience with the MPAS-JEDI data assimilation system and contributed to the development of the MPAS-Workflow. She helped to extend existing capabilities in MPAS-Workflow to operate as a near real-time prototype application implementing necessary procedures and having a stable cycling system that ran for more than five months successfully without crashes. Outside work, she enjoys traveling, hiking, road trips, meeting new people and places, and spending time with her family and friends.