ET-DRG Member Bios

Andreja Susnik 

Andreja Sušnik is an agronomist by education and holds a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana. She worked as an agrometeorologist at the Hydrometeorological Institute of Slovenia between 1992-2007.  From 2007 she is Head of Section for Meteorological Support to Agriculture in the frame of the Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO).  The main focus of her work is the development of very diverse agrometeorological services, tools, and analysis for different stakeholders in agriculture, preparation of strategic documents related to vulnerability assessments and adaptation of agriculture to climate variability and climate change, last 15 years mainly focusing on the development of drought monitoring tools, methodologies and management measures on a national and international scale. In this context, she has been successfully coordinating several national and international projects and initiatives and is part of a number of international working groups on the topic, including with UNCCD and WMO.
 

Christa Pudmenzky

Dr. Christa Pudmenzky has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Climatology. She has over 20 years of experience researching the impact of climate and worked as a Research Fellow in the Centre for Applied Climate Science at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, specialising in climate, drought, agricultural application research. Christa developed the Australian Drought Monitor and drought indices suitable for Australian conditions, which are used in drought monitoring, planning and prediction for producers and policymakers.  She has a strong capability in climate change adaptation integration analysis and associated program and project development, especially in relation agriculture and aspects such as dust transport, associated geomorphology, and relevant climate science. Christa was previous being selected as an Expert Team Member representing Australia and the South-West Pacific region within the United Nations/World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) and Commission for Climatology (CCl). She was more recently being selected as an Expert Team Global Co-Lead on Drought as part of the Standing Committee on Services for Agriculture (SC-AGR). She also has been actively involved in the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative recovering historical weather data to underpin 3D weather reconstructions (reanalyses) spanning the last 200-250 years for climate applications and impacts needs worldwide.

Surender Singh

Professor Surender Singh (PhD) is a principal scientist and senior researcher in agrometeorology at CCS Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar, India. His research interests include operational agrometeorology and outreach, regional climate change and monsoon dynamics, agricultural drought, fog dynamics and impact assessments, and ambient air quality concerns in agricultural production systems. Dr Singh earned a bachelor's degree in agriculture (Hons), a master's degree in agricultural meteorology, and a doctorate in agricultural meteorology from Haryana Agricultural University. Professor Singh has 30 years of experience in the field of agrometeorology and related applied fields. Professor Singh has previously held the roles of Head of the Department of Agricultural Meteorology, University's Adviser and Associate Director (Counseling & Placement). Dr Singh has previously worked as a visiting faculty member at IAC-CIIAGRO in Campinas, Brazil; AS ICTP in Trieste, Italy; BOKU-Met in Vienna, Austria; and ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. 
Professor Singh is currently the managing editor of the Journal of Agrometeorology and a core member of the SC-AGR Expert Team on Drought (ET-DRG) under the World Meteorological Organization's SERCOM; Chairman of the Association of Agrometeorologists (Hisar Chapter) and a founding member of the South Asia Forum on Agricultural Meteorology (SAFOAM).
 

Josef Eitzinger

Professor Josef Eitzinger (PhD) is professor for Agrometeorology at the Institute of Meteorology and Climatology of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. His research focus includes climate change impact and adaptation assessments for agriculture, developing and applying tools such as crop models, agrometeorological risk indicators, pest and disease models. Other activities include the development of information systems such as for monitoring and forecasting of agrometeorological conditions (such as agricultural drought) at various scales and microclimatic field studies for specific research questions. Since 2000 he served as expert for various expert teams of WMO-CAgM (World Meteorological Organization - Commission for Agricultural Meteorology).

Sayed Masoud Mostafavi Darani

Dr. Mostafavi Darani has a Master degree in agronomy, class I degree in agrometeorology and PhD degree in Agricultural Climatology. In 2013 joined the Centre for Applied Climate Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia in a sabbatical leave. He has over 20 years of experiences working as a senior expert of Agrometeorology in I.R.Iran Meteorological Organization and started his international activities from 2005 as a founding and steering committee member of INSAM (International Society for Agricultural Meteorology) under guidance of late Prof. Stigter. He has been a member of the former CAgM commission Expert Teams (ETs) as an expert and team leader for 10 years. His research interest is in agrometeorology including crop-climate modeling, climate change, drought, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and etc. 

Petra Döll

Petra Döll has worked as Professor of Hydrology at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, since 2003. She has two research foci: 1) global-scale modeling of water resources and their use, and 2) methods for participatory processes and transdisciplinary knowledge integration. She is leading the development of the global hydrological model WaterGAP, which aims to provide a quantitative understanding of the global freshwater system as affected by humans and to help assess water-related stress and hazards for both humans and freshwater ecosystems. Her specific scientific interests include developing indicators in the problem areas of water stress, drought, and climate change, and optimally communicating and visualizing scientific results and their uncertainties. Prof. Döll contributed to the development of a multi-sectoral global drought hazard monitoring and forecasting system. She was a lead author of the freshwater resources chapters in the Fourth and Fifth IPCC Assessment Reports and of the Summary for Policymakers of IPCC’s Working Group 2 of the Fifth Assessment Report.

Marcelo Uriburu Quirno

Lynette Bettio 

Dr Lynette Bettio has worked for over 20 years as a climate scientist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in the operational climate section. With a PhD examining ENSO and the impacts on Australia and the South Pacific, she started at the Bureau of Meteorology as the coordination lead for the WMO Long-Range Forecast Verification Service-Lead Centre. In the operational climate section Lynette has contributed to and led a number of services including Drought Monitoring and Seasonal Climate Prediction. She has also worked in partnership with Pacific Island Nations on the science and communication of seasonal forecasts. Lynette has previously served as an Expert Team Member representing Australia and the South-West Pacific region within the United Nations/World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) and on the Expert Team on Drought as part of what is now the Standing Committee on Services for Agriculture (SC-AGR).

Lynette is currently the Technical Lead for Climate Risk at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and is responsible for the examination and communication around the increasing risk for hazards, including drought, under climate change in Australia. Lynette was a contributor to Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment and has a strong interest in the future risk space and increasing community resilience to future change.

Lucy Barker

Lucy Barker is a Senior Hydrological Analyst at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, with over 12 years of experience and specialising in drought research. Her work focuses on improving hydrological drought characterisation, the application of drought indicators, and the use of drought impacts to support drought monitoring and forecasting. She led the development of UNCCD Good Practice Guidance for tracking global trends in drought hazard, exposure and vulnerability, supporting efforts to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable populations and ecosystems. Lucy also leads the UK National Hydrological Monitoring Programme, which provides national hydrological monitoring information to government, the media, water managers and the public, and provides the co-designed near-real-time UK Water Resources Portal. She works with the World Meteorological Organization on the global HydroSOS initiative providing information on current and future water resources to improve resilience to hydrological hazards. She supports implementation in countries around the world and co-leads the HydroSOS technical team.

Roger Pulwarty 

Roger S. Pulwarty is the Acting Director and Senior Scientist in the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Pulwarty is a weather, water, and disaster science expert with over 130 peer-reviewed publications and co-edited books. He has also designed and led key multidisciplinary research and applications programs, including the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the WMO Climate Services Information System. Roger has served as a convening lead author on national and international assessments including for the IPCC, the UNDRR, the EU, the International Science Council, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Roger is vice-Chair of the WMO Standing Commission on Climate, a member of the WMO Expert Team on Decision Support, and on the Latin America and the Caribbean Science and Technical Advisory Group. His work has been awarded by the U.S. Government, the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Rank Award, the Gold Medal for Applied Sciences (Government of Trinidad and Tobago), and the AGU Gilbert F. White and Science Ambassador Awards, among others. Roger is Professor Adjunct at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of the West Indies, Barbados. He is the co-editor of “Hurricanes: Climate and Socio-economic Impacts” (Springer, reissued 2012), “Drought and Water Crises” (CRC Press 2017), “Drought in the Anthropocene” (UN Press, 2019), and “Droughts: from Risk to Resilience” (UN Press, 2021). 

Gregor Gregoric 

Gregor Gregorič holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. He began his career as a weather forecaster at the Hydrometeorological Institute of Slovenia before joining the University of Ljubljana as an assistant lecturer in physical and dynamic meteorology. Since 2002, he has been working at the Environmental Agency of Slovenia, Meteorological Office, where he served as Head of the Department of Applied Meteorology until 2015 and currently works as a consultant in the agrometeorology department. His technical expertise focuses on drought monitoring, meteorological analysis of drought impacts, and the development of regional drought management strategies. He has contributed to numerous national committees assessing drought impacts and has played key roles in several international projects, including as coordinator of the DMCSEE project and deputy coordinator of the DriDanube project. Most recently, he serves as national project team coordinator for the Clim4Cast project.

Daniel Tsegai 

Dr. Daniel Tsegai is Programme Officer at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) where he leads the “Drought and Water Scarcity” portfolio of the convention and coordinates the global Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought. Before joining UNCCD, Daniel was Academic Officer at the UN-Water Programme of the United Nations University (UNU) and early in his career, he served as lecturer and Senior Researcher at the Center of Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn.

Omar Konte

Information will be added soon.