World Meteorological Organization

Valentina Grigoryan  

Valentina Grigoryan is the Principal Advisor to Director of “Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center” SNCO of the Republic of Armenia. She has worked in the National Hydrometeorological Service for more than 30 years, being in charge of the hydrometeorological, agrometeorological and climate service, international relations activities. She is a nominated expert in the WMO Commission for Weather, Climate, Water and Related Environmental Services and Applications, also Valentina Grigoryan is a core member of the Standing Committee on Services for Agriculture and lead of ET on Agromet Capacity Development and Communications. She also serves as the Focal Point of WMO-INTAD6, GCOS. She is an experienced expert on Agricultural Meteorology and Capacity building. She was an Academic Coordinator with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Currently, Valentina Grigoryan is involved in various projects collaborating with different international organizations.

Graham Baker  

Clyde Fraisse  

Clyde Fraisse is a Professor of Agrometeorology at the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida. Dr. Fraisse’s work experience includes academia and private industry. His extension and applied research program focus on developing and providing climate information and decision support tools to help agricultural producers better cope with risks associated with climate variability and change. Dr. Fraisse developed and maintains AgroClimate (http://agroclimate.org/), a web-based climate information system and implemented climate information systems in South America and Africa. 

Vanda Cabrinha Pires  

Vanda Cabrinha Pires, holds a B.Sc. in Geophysical Sciences/Meteorology and a M.Sc in Earth Sciences and Engineering. Senior Meteorologist/Climatologist at IPMA (Portugal meteorological service) since 1995. Main activities: climate monitoring; studies on climate variability and climate change; agrometeorology studies, specialist in extreme phenomena, especially in drought monitoring and analysis. Participation in national climate change policies and strategies for risk reduction. Participates in working groups of experts related to earth sciences and is representative of IPMA in National and International scientific and technical commissions and working groups (ex: Agricultural Meteorology Commission, Climatology Commission, National Drought Technical Group, National Commission to Combat Desertification).  Currently is a Core Member of the SC-AGR Expert Team on Agromet Capacity Development and Communication, inside the Standing Committee of Services for Agriculture. Trainer for technical personnel in the areas of climatology and agroclimatology. Supervisor in academic theses, in professional internships and research grants. Regular participation in national and international conferences/workshops with more than 50 publications in books and articles in national and international journals.

Maria Elena Fernandez Long

María Elena Fernández Long was born on May 25, 1966 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studies Hydrometeorology in School of Science, Buenos Aires University and she has a Magister of Science in Agricultural Meteorology, from the same University. She has been working in School of Agronomy for more than 25 years; from 2015 as a Professor in the fields of agricultural meteorology; and she also work in Capacity Building Department at the National Meteorological Service. 

She is author/co-author of more than 150 publications in peer reviewed journals, books, monographs and in Meeting Proceedings, and 5 softwares. With her university’s colleagues developed a simple water balance (BHOA, “Operational Hydrological Balance for Agriculture”) that is used in the National Meteorological Service to provide an operative tool in real time available for the agricultural decision-makers, and for a different type of users (https://bit.ly/3BCjGjY). She also works with others meteorological hazards and risks in agriculture as frost, developing a webpage with all this information (https://bit.ly/3vbZuTN). She collaborated in the development of thermo-photoperiodic models named CRONOTRIGO © (https://bit.ly/3lvLaCu) and in CRONOSOJA © (https://bit.ly/3ACmmNn) for predicting the timing of phenological events as the beginning of stem elongation, flowering, and physiological maturity.

Mecklina Merchades  

Ms Mecklina M. Babyegeya has 11 years experience in Meteorology specifically in generation of agrometeorological products for agriculture sector in Tanzania. In 2014 to date Ms. Mecklina became a GFCS Desk Officer responsible for coordination of GFCS Adaptation Programme in Africa (GFCS APA).  Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) was a multiagency programme implemented by the Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA), World Food Programme (WFP), Tanzania Red Cross Society (TRC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and University of Dar es salaam (UDSM) under the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). She coordinated partners to ensure successful implementation of the programme and its sustainability by developing and implementation of the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS). Furthermore, Mecklina worked with UKMET Office to support the implemention of  Mult Hazard Early Warning (MHEWS) Project under the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER). Apart from that she coordinated the High Impact Weather Lake System (HIGHWAY) project to reduce community risks due to bad weather in Lake Victoria. Ongoing project coordinated by Mecklina are FOCUS AFRICA and COGENT. Mecklina has a BSc (Hon) in Meteorology from Pretoria University and MSc in Urban Environmental Management  from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Feiyun Yang  

Yang Feiyun graduated from China Agricultural University with a master's degree in agricultural meteorology. She has worked at the China Meteorological Administration for 27 years, including 13 years in agrometeorological information services and related agrometeorological research work, and 14 years in agrometeorological training and related agrometeorological research work. She is a professor at the Training Center of the China Meteorological Administration, one of the chief service experts of China Meteorological Administration, and a member of the Agrometeorological Standardization Committee of the Meteorological Industry. Her current main work is on-the-job agricultural meteorological training, and she also undertakes scientific research projects in agricultural meteorological disaster monitoring and the application of crop models.

Jong-Sook Park

Jong-Sook Park is a Core Member of the SC-AGR Expert Team on Agromet Capacity Development and Communication, in the Standing Committee of Services for Agriculture. Previously she joined WMO as Expert Team 4.2 Leader, Committee for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) (2018-2020). Dr. Park holds a B.Sc(1988). in Geography and an M.Sc(1995) in GIS and Geomorphology at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and studied hydrometeorology for her Ph.D. (2007) at the Department of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering, University of Bristol, UK. She has been involved in many research projects in the field of hydrology, radar meteorology, flood risk management, and building hydrometeorological models using climate change scenarios and service GUI using GIS technology for over 20 years. She developed her career in private sectors in the early stage (1993~2000), move to the UK for her doctoral study, and worked as a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol and Swansea University, UK (2003~2012). Then joined as senior researcher for the National Institute of Meteorological Researches and Weather Radar Centre in Korea Meteorological Administration (2012~2017) as well as served as a director of Climate Service Division in KMA (2017~2020). She occasionally trained overseas weather forecasters through the ODA program and taught Meteorology, Environmental Climate, and Radar Meteorology for young students at universities.  

Shontelle Stoute