91É«ÇéƬ

Alumni career stories

Read stories from our CCRC alumni and the career paths that studying with us can take you.

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Landscape of Antarctica

Mission control at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

I am currently a Climate Scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand in Wellington, New Zealand. My current research interests involve climate modelling and extreme events, including what drives these events and how they are projected to change as the climate system continues to warm. I am also interested in how machine learning can be used alongside more traditional dynamical models for increasing the resolution of future climate projections to aid various stakeholders and applications.

After completing my PhD at the CCRC, I went on to do a postdoc at NASA-JPL in Pasadena, California (2017-2020). There I was involved in a range of different areas of research including climate model evaluation with remotely sensed data from satellite, as well as subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting of drought, and other data science projects. After leaving JPL (where I pretended to be a rocket scientist) I moved to San Diego to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (where I pretended to be an Oceanographer). My work at Scripps, within the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, continued to focus on seasonal drought prediction in support of water resource management in California.

My PhD experience at the CCRC gave me a strong foundation in climate science, both in terms of the technical skills needed to do climate research today as well as the underlying theoretical knowledge of the climate system. I was fortunate to be able to tap into the broad expertise of different supervisors at the CCRC, which opened my eyes to the various subfields of climate research that I am involved in today. My PhD experience at the CCRC allowed me to travel internationally to workshops which helped build connections and ultimately my confidence to apply for postdoc positions further afield. Perhaps most importantly, I had a very enjoyable time at the CCRC and made several ongoing friendships and collaborations.

Ocean Modeller at the British Antarctic Survey

I studied at the CCRC between 2014 and 2018,Ìýmodelling interactions between the Southern Ocean, sea ice, and Antarctic ice shelves.ÌýMy PhD research gave me a solid grounding in ocean modelling, and allowed me to forge lasting collaborations with ice-ocean researchers from Hobart to Germany. This experience led directly to a postdoc at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, one of the world's foremost polar research centres, where I remain to this day. I have used my ice-ocean modelling skills to study the past, present and future of ice shelves around Antarctica, focusing on the Weddell and Amundsen Seas and collaborating with observationalists.ÌýThe CCRC was an ideal launchpad for an international career in science. I will always miss the wonderful friends I made there, and the sunny Sydney beaches.

Climate & Perils Lead, VP at Guy Carpenter

ShirleyÌýQin completed her PhD in 2015, where she tracked simulated water parcels in the Pacific Ocean. After that, she joined Guy Carpenter, running catastrophe models for reinsurance placements, monitoring live natural peril events and developing models for risk based pricing for a wide range of perils that impacts Australia and New Zealand, including bushfires, floods, hail storms, tropical cyclones, storm surge, and earthquakes.ÌýShirley then spent some time working at Munich Re, expanding climate analytics models originally designed for insurance to be used in the banking sector. She’s now back at Guy Carpenter, focusing on developing natural perils and climate models.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne

My time at the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) from 2018 to 2022 was an incredibly rewarding experience that I still cherish. During my PhD, I became a paleoclimate modeller and a paleoceanographer, while simulating past climates spanning 20,000–70,000 years ago, using an Earth system climate model (ESCM) of intermediate complexity. My research investigated how changes in iron-rich dust supply influenced Southern Ocean marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle during the last glacial cycle, improving our understanding of the links between climate, ocean biology, and carbon storage. This experience in modelling past climates shaped my research journey, and I continued at CCRC as a postdoctoral researcher until 2025,

where I used the more complex Australian ESM model to investigate climate dynamics and past climate change. The collaborations and experiences I gained at CCRC were instrumental in shaping my research journey.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, as part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather. My research focuses on climate variability, with a particular interest in understanding the processes influencing Australian monsoon behaviour.

Scientific Engineer at Weatherzone

I was at the CCRC from 2017 to 2024, where I studied paleoclimatology and completed my Honours and PhD. My research focused on past climate periods such as the Last Deglaciation and the Last Interglacial. Using Earth System Models, I investigated past climate changes and the processes that drove them, with projects spanning Antarctic shelf subsurface warming, vegetation feedbacks, oxygen isotope analysis, and freshwater hosing experiments.

I now work as a Scientific Engineer at DTN (also known as Weatherzone in Australia), where I first joined as an intern while completing my PhD. Since then, I've transitioned from climate research into industry. My role involves developing, deploying, and maintaining weather forecasting systems and datasets for applications including flood forecasting, pollutant dispersion, and wildfire prediction. These systems support operational decision-making for private industry and government agencies, allowing me to apply the modelling, programming, and analytical skills I developed during my research to real-world environmental challenges.

Atmospheric Dynamicist at ETH Zurich

I joined CCRC in 2021 and completed my PhD in 2025. During my PhD, I investigated planetary-scale asymmetries in the mid-latitude atmosphere and their influence on regional climate variability and high-impact weather across both hemispheres. Along the way, I moved from stationary Rossby waves in the Southern Hemisphere to high-impact extratropical cyclones across the globe. I had the immense luck of doing all of this and of having the freedom to follow where the science took me, under the supervision of the very best, Martin Jucker.

I had a wonderful time at CCRC and made many fond memories that I’ll carry with me for a long time. The training and experience I gained during my PhD took me directly to my current postdoctoral position at ETH Zurich in the Atmospheric Dynamics group. Here, I’ve zoomed in from planetary scales to the inner workings of extratropical cyclones, studying warm conveyor belts and their moisture sources.

Climate Scientist at startup

I completed my PhD at the 91É«ÇéƬ Climate Change Research Centre, where my research focused on understanding extreme convective wind gusts in New South Wales, including their present-day drivers and how they may change in the future.

I moved to Australia as a small-town girl from India, and CCRC quickly became a second home to me. It provided not only an outstanding research environment, but also a warm and supportive community and friendships that made my PhD journey deeply rewarding. Through my doctoral research, I gained experience in managing and analysing large environmental and climate datasets, applying machine learning techniques, and conducting high-resolution regional climate simulations. I also developed strong skills in scientific programming, climate data interpretation, and communicating complex research findings.

This experience led me to my current role as a Climate Scientist at Geoneon, where I work on applied climate and environmental projects. My role allows me to combine climate science, geospatial analysis, and modelling to help address practical environmental and climate-risk challenges. I enjoy being able to do some meaningful work that has direct, real-world impact.

Ìý

Observation Scientist, Bureau of Meteorology

I completed my PhD in Climate Science at the Climate Change Research Centre and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at 91É«ÇéƬ from 2018 to 2022. My PhD focused on understanding the characteristics and changes of extreme storms using weather radar and satellite observations, including storm intensity, size, movement and short-duration rainfall extremes.

After my PhD, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne, where I studied fire weather and the mesoscale and large-scale atmospheric dynamics associated with it. I completed my postdoc in 2024. From 2024 to 2025, I worked in industry as a Python developer at a GIS-focused company, developing applications to process and analyse drone imagery and LiDAR data and extract useful information from those observations.

I am now working as an Observation Scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology, where I am bringing together my experience in climate science, observations, data analysis and software development to help develop and improve operational observation products.