Riley X. Brady

Ph.D. Candidate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Education

2021 University of Colorado Boulder PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (Boulder, CO)

2018 University of Colorado Boulder MS in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (Boulder, CO)

2016 University of South Carolina BS in Marine Sciences (emphasis in Physical Oceanography). Magna Cum Laude, Honors College, Phi Beta Kappa, Leadership Distinction in Research (Columbia, SC)

2014 Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg Minor in German (Bamberg, Germany)

2012 Cosby High School (Midlothian, VA)

Work Experience

2021 – present McKinsey & Company Senior Data Scientist, Climate Analytics (Denver, CO)

2016-2021 University of Colorado Boulder Graduate Researcher, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (Boulder, CO)

Summer 2020 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Graduate Researcher, Climate Change Science Institute (Remote)

Summer 2018 Los Alamos National Laboratory Graduate Researcher, Theoretical Division (Los Alamos, NM)

2012-2016 University of South Carolina Undergraduate Researcher, Ecosystem Oceanography & Climate Change Lab (Columbia, SC)

Summer 2015 NOAA Earth System Research Lab NOAA Hollings Scholar, Physical Sciences Division (Boulder, CO)

Summer 2013 UNC Institute of Marine Sciences NSF REU Scholar, Coastal Fisheries Ecology Lab (Morehead City, NC)

Publications

Peer-Reviewed

2021 Brady, RX and A Spring (2021), climpred: Verification of weather and climate forecasts, Journal of Open Source Software, 6 (59), 2781. [PDF] [Online]

2020Schlunegger, S, Y Eddebbar, RX Brady, and FA Burger (2020), Applications of Large Ensembles for marine biogeochemistry, US CLIVAR Variations, 18 (2). [PDF] [Online]

2020 Brady, RX, NS Lovenduski, SG Yeager, MC Long, and K Lindsay (2020), Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System, Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15722-x. [PDF] [Supplemental] [Press Release]

2020 Elsworth, GE, NS Lovenduski, KA McKinnon, KM Krumhardt, and RX Brady (2020), Finding the fingerprint of anthropogenic climate change in marine phytoplankton abundance, Current Climate Change Reports. DOI: 10.1007/s40641-020-00156-w. [PDF]

2019 Brady, RX, NS Lovenduski, MA Alexander, M Jacox, and N Gruber (2019), On the role of climate modes in modulating the air-sea CO2 fluxes in eastern boundary upwelling systems, Biogeosciences, 16, 329–346, DOI: 10.5194/bg-16-329-2019. [PDF] [Supplemental]

2017 Brady, RX, MA Alexander, NS Lovenduski, and RR Rykaczewski (2017), Emergent anthropogenic trends in California Current upwelling, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 5044–5052, DOI: 10.1002/2017GL072945. [PDF] [Supplemental] [Press Release]

Conference Proceedings

2019 Dutta, S, RX Brady, ME Maltrud, PJ Wolfram, and R Bujack (2019), Leveraging Lagrangian analysis for discriminating nutrient origins, Visualization in Environmental Sciences (EnvirVis). [PDF]

Magazine Articles

2017 Brady, RX (2017), The Basic STEM Toolbox, NextStep STEM, 16-17. [Online]

2016 Brady, RX (2016), Shark Walk to STEM - My Journey to Oceanography & Climate Science, NextStepU. [Online]

Funded Proposals

Lead Principal Investigator

2016-2020 Brady, RX, Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, $450,000 total award.

2014-2015 Brady, RX and RR Rykaczewski, Variability in large-scale forcing of the four major Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. University of South Carolina Magellan Research Scholarship, $3,000 total award.

2013-2014 Brady, RX and RR Rykaczewski, The influence of water vapor on upwelling. SC Honors College Science Undergraduate Research Fellowship, $2,900 total award.

2012-2013 Brady, RX and RR Rykaczewski, Ocean ecosystems in 2100. SC Honors College Science Undergraduate Research Fellowship, $2,700 total award.

Technical Skills

Computer Languages

Other Tools

Design

Software

Core Developer

automate-mpas: a collection of shell and python scripts to automate the process of setting up and running an MPAS simulation with Lagrangian particles.

climpred: an object-oriented python package for analyzing decadal prediction ensemble output.

esmtools: a toolbox for Earth system model analysis.

xskillscore: metrics for verifying forecasts using xarray. Added an option to weight all metrics (e.g. by grid cell area) and skip NaNs (e.g. when masking).

Contributor

esmlab: tools for working with Earth system multi-model analyses with xarray. Added statistical significance testing for correlations.

LIGHT: a Lagrangian particle tracking system for the MPAS ocean model. Added biogeochemical “sensors” for the autonomous floats.

mpas-analysis: automated analysis of the components of the MPAS model. Added diagnostics for ocean biogeochemistry.

Awards

National

2016 Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, Department of Energy

2015 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, United States Congress

2014 Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Institutional

2020 Departmental (ATOC) Service Award, “For providing technical support to fellow students and for outstanding mentorship to underrepresented undergraduate students.”

2018 Departmental (ATOC) Service Award, “For successful efforts to involve ATOC students with the oceanography faculty search.”

2016 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, University of South Carolina (3 recipients)

Outstanding Undergraduate in Marine Science, University of South Carolina (2 recipients)

Outstanding Senior Award, University of South Carolina

2012 McNair Scholar, University of South Carolina (Valued at $130,800)

Meetings

2016 1st Place, Oceanography, Earth System and Space Science Poster Conference

2015 Best Student Talk, Eastern Pacific Ocean Conference

2014 Outstanding Student Presentation Award, Ocean Sciences Meeting

2013 1st Place, Morning Oral STEM Session, South Carolina Discovery Day

Visualization

2019 Runner-up, NASA Data Visualization and Storytelling Competition, American Geophysical Union

Media

2020 “Ocean acidification prediction now possible years in advance”, CU Boulder Today, by Kelsey Simpkins (Research Highlight) [Online]

2020 “Killing Rainbows”, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Volume 40 (2), by Gary Singh. (Cover art and feature story) [Cover] [Story]

2019 “Diversifying Peer Review by Adding Junior Scientists”, Undark, by Dan Garisto. (Quoted) [Online]

2019 “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch from 1982 to 1998, visualized”, Digg. (Visualization) [Online]

2019 “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, front page of reddit. [Online]

2017 “How will climate change affect the California Current upwelling?”, AGU Highlights, by Terri Cook. (Research Highlight) [Online]

2011 “Cosby’s ‘man of steel’ forges inspirational comeback story”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, by Fred Jeter. (Feature story, accompanied by a flattering photo) [Article]

Service

Mentorship

2021 Goldwater Scholarship Mentor, Matthew Duggan (University of South Carolina)

2020 Programming Mentor, Isis Díaz (SMART; University of Puerto Rico)

2019 Programming Mentor, Holly Olivarez (SOARS; University of New Mexico)

Programming Mentor, David Feagins (SMART; St. Mary’s University)

Programming Mentor, Gabriela Cazares (SOARS; MIT)

Programming Mentor, Brianna Green (RESESS; New Mexico Tech)

2017 Programming Mentor, Gabriela Negrete-Garcia (SOARS; University of Wisconsin–Madison)

Miscellaneous

2020 Co-Organizer, Eastern Pacific Ocean Conference (Mount Hood, OR)

2020 Trout Bowl Science Judge (Boulder, CO)

2019 Boulder Valley School District Science Fair Judge (Boulder, CO)

2018-2019 Skype a Scientist (video calls with high school science classes)

2018-2019 Contributor, Climate Gamers [Ice Ages] [Climate Models]

2017-2019 Graduate Committee Lead, oceanography faculty search; prospective students; mentorship

2017 SOARS Poster Conference Judge (Boulder, CO)

2013-2016 Ambassador, Office of Fellowships; Office of Undergraduate Research; Sustainable Carolina

Peer Reviewer

Biogeosciences

Earth System Science Data

JGR: Oceans (x2)

Journal of Open Source Software

Teaching

University of Colorado Boulder

Fall 2019 Guest Lecturer, Physical Oceanography and Climate (Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems)

Spring 2019 Grader, Biogeochemical Oceanography (20 Students)

Fall 2018 Guest Lecturer, Our Changing Climate (Latent and Sensible Heat)

University of South Carolina

Spring 2016 Grader, Ordinary Differential Equations (39 Students)

Fall 2015 Lecturer, University 101 (20 Students)

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Fall 2019 Guest Lecturer, Intro to Scientific Computing for Earth Sciences (From Raw Climate Data to Beautiful Plots) [Github Repo]

Spring 2019 Guest Lecturer, Intro to Scientific Computing for Earth Sciences (Color Theory and Matplotlib)

Presentations

Invited Talks

2020 climpred: an xarray wrapper for analysis of ensemble forecast models for climate prediction. CESM Workshop. (remote)

2019 Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System. Physical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Lab. (Boulder, CO)

High resolution simulation of biogeochemical pathways in E3SM. Computational Earth Sciences Group, Oak Ridge National Lab. (Oak Ridge, TN)

On the role of climate modes in modulating the air-sea CO2 fluxes in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. EBUS Webinar Series. [Video]

2018 Effective Use of Color in Scientific Visualization. Scientific Programming and Data Visualization (ATOC Course: Sci Programming, Data Analysis, and Vis Lab). (Boulder, CO)

Effective Use of Color in Scientific Visualization. ATOC Graduate Student Forum. (Boulder, CO)

Southern Ocean Carbon Hotspots in E3SM. Climate, Ocean, and Sea Ice Modeling (COSIM) Team. (Los Alamos, NM)

2016 Emergence of Anthropogenic Trends in California Current Upwelling in the Presence of Natural Climate Variability. NCAR Oceanography Section. (Boulder, CO)

Conference Talks

2021 Lagrangian trajectories of carbon in the topographically influenced Southern Ocean. 2021 SOCCOM Annual Meeting. (remote)

2020 Lagrangian circulation of carbon from the Southern Ocean abyss. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Annual Review. (remote)

2019 Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System. Eastern Pacific Ocean Conference. (South Lake Tahoe, CA)

Skillful multiyear predictions of pH variability in the California Current System. CESM Workshop. (Boulder, CO)

2018 On the role of climate modes in modulating the air-sea CO2 fluxes in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. 12th Graduate Climate Conference. (Pack Forest, WA)

What controls the variability of CO2 fluxes in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems? Ocean Sciences Meeting. (Portland, OR) [Slides]

2016 Emergence of anthropogenic trends in California Current upwelling in the presence of internal climate variability. CESM Workshop. (Breckenridge, CO) [Slides]

2015 The influence of natural variability on future California Current upwelling. AGU Fall Meeting. (San Francisco, CA) [Slides]

Quantifying natural and anthropogenic variation in California Current upwelling. Eastern Pacific Ocean Conference. (South Lake Tahoe, CA) [Slides]

Posters

2020 Lagrangian pathways of dissolved inorganic carbon in the Southern Ocean. Ocean Sciences Meeting. (San Diego, CA)

2019 Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System. Graduate Climate Conference. (Woods Hole, MA)

Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System. Chapman Conference on Understanding Carbon Climate Feedbacks. (La Jolla, CA)

Skillful multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System. CLIVAR Large Ensembles Workshop. (Boulder, CO)

2018 On the role of climate modes in modulating the air-sea CO2 fluxes in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. Synthesis and intercomparison of ocean carbon uptake in CMIP6 models. (Washington, DC)

2017 CO2 flux variability in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. 10th International Carbon Dioxide Conference. (Interlaken, Switzerland)

2016 Emergence of anthropogenic trends in California Current upwelling in the presence of internal climate variability. Ocean Sciences Meeting. (New Orleans, LA)

2014 Consequences of changing high-pressure zones on future coastal upwelling. Ocean Sciences Meeting. (Honolulu, HI)

Workshops

2020 The climpred diagnostics package. Earth System Prediction Working Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). (Boulder, CO) [Github Repo with Binder]

Effective Use of Color in Scientific Visualization. Colorado State University. (Fort Collins, CO)

2019 Effective Use of Color in Climate Science Visualizations. ATOC Graduate Student Forum. (Boulder, CO) [Github Repo with Binder]

Introduction to Git Version Control. ATOC Graduate Student Forum. (Boulder, CO)

Short Courses

2019 CMIP6 Hackathon, National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO)

Swiss Climate Summer School: Carbon and Climate in the Paris World (Ascona, Switzerland)

CMIP6 Hackathon, Oak Ridge National Lab (Oak Ridge, TN)

2018 ParaView Tutorial, Los Alamos National Lab (Los Alamos, NM)

2017 Introduction to Parallel Programming, CU Boulder (Boulder, CO)

2014 NMFS Marine Resources Population Dynamics Workshop (Layton, FL)

Graduate Coursework


Last updated: June 2021