CW3E Welcomes Colin Grudzien

January 11, 2022

Dr. Colin Grudzien joins CW3E as a Data Assimilation Scientist in January, 2022. Colin received his BS in Mathematics and History from the University of Oregon in 2011 and his PhD in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2016. In his PhD, Colin was a graduate research assistant for the Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN), a virtual organization that was designed to connect mathematicians with geoscientists in order to develop interdisciplinary research programs and collaborations. As a graduate research assistant for MCRN, Colin organized an online data assimilation seminar which included partners in the USA and abroad. During his PhD, Colin completed an internship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was a visiting student at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bangalore, India, and at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) in Bergen, Norway. Colin’s graduate work included studying dynamical systems, partial differential equations, Bayesian inference and model reduction techniques.

Upon completion of his PhD, Colin joined NERSC as a postdoctoral researcher from August 2016 until December 2018, developing stability and robustness criteria for data assimilation schemes in stochastic dynamical systems. Colin’s postdoctoral work included a visiting researcher period at the Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherche en Environnement Atmosphérique (CEREA) in Champs-sur-Marne, France. Following his postdoctoral appointment, Colin was an Assistant Professor of Statistics at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) from January 2019 until December 2021, during which time Colin studied the numerical simulation of stochastic dynamical systems and the development of ensemble-variational data assimilation methodology. At UNR, Colin developed undergraduate and graduate coursework in computational statistics and data science, and he was the advisor for the Student Chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Colin now joins CW3E to establish new collaborations, developing novel mathematical, statistical and computational methodology to solve the operational data assimilation problem, to improve the understanding and prediction of atmospheric rivers, and to make an impact on the pressing issue of climate change adaptation in the Western USA. Colin is eager to use his expertise in computational data science at CW3E to further the Center’s mission, to mentor junior scientists, and, as always, he is eager to learn from his colleagues and to expand his research scope. Colin’s professional website, with links to his publications, software and teaching materials, is linked here.