Take 10 with... Emily Gordon

1. Describe your research topic to us in 10 words or less.

Predicting climate change with machine learning and climate models.

2. Now explain it in everyday terms!

Greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming and other severe changes to our climate. My research uses machine learning and climate modelling to identify and investigate processes in the climate that contribute to this uncertainty so that we can better predict them and prepare for change.

3. Describe some of your day-to-day research activities.

I usually start the day catching up on recent publications with my morning cup of coffee. During the semester I teach and meet with students to catch up on their progress. Much of my research work is computational so I try to write some code every day. There is also the ever-present email inbox hanging over me, which I mostly keep on top of.

4. What do you enjoy most about your research?

I like working on hard problems and I know I’m fortunate that my job allows me to think about, and work on, the things that interest me the most. My second favourite part is talking to collaborators, colleagues, and students about these problems.

5. Tell us something that has surprised you in the course of your research.

I did not think I would become so excited about looking at clouds. They tell us so much about the atmospheric environment and they’re fun to watch. I regularly get distracted walking home from work when there are interesting afternoon clouds and become a hazard to traffic!

6. How have you approached any challenges you’ve faced in your research?

I keep doing a little bit every day and don’t avoid the hard tasks. For me, research is not a single “aha!” moment, but weeks (often months) of small insights and discoveries.

7. What questions have emerged as a result?

I spent a lot of time earlier this year trying to frame a problem to do with predicting summertime temperature extremes. I think this problem became so difficult because the methodology and metrics we use in climate science don’t always align with the way human and natural systems experience climate change. So now I am thinking about how to keep doing rigorous climate science that also reflects the reality of climate change impacts on humans and ecosystems.

8. What kind of impact do you hope your research will have?

I hope that I will contribute to the understanding of climate change and inform our adaptation to it. I also really hope to lure more students into climate research! It’s a global community of people with diverse scientific backgrounds and you get to do interesting, impactful research. I can’t imagine anything better.

9. If you collaborate across the faculty or University, or even outside the University, who do you work with and how does it benefit your research?

I am fortunate to have maintained collaborative links with the United States, working on climate change prediction and machine learning based problems with people from Stanford University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

10. What one piece of advice would you give your younger, less experienced research self?

Spend less time worrying and more time doing.