EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC AND DATA SCIENTIST

Table of Contents

• EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC AND DATA SCIENTIST
  • EMPLOYMENT
  • EDUCATION
  • RESEARCH INTERESTS
  • KEY SKILLS
  • WORK EXPERIENCE
  • PROJECTS
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • CONFERENCES/WORKSHOPS ATTENDED
  • SERVICE

EMPLOYMENT

• Postdoctoral Research Associate

  Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, US

• Research Associate

  Environmental Protection Agency - Ghana

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., Earth and Atmospheric Science

  Indiana University - Bloomington (May 2023 - July 2025, PhD Candidate)

• M.Sc., Earth and Atmospheric Science

  Indiana University - Bloomington (August 2021 - May 2023)

• B.Sc., Meteorology and Climate Science

  Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Aug. 2020)

• Diploma, Computer Hardware Technician

  International Business Bureau (2015)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Climate and Weather Extremes
• Climate change impacts and adaptation
• Atmospheric Rivers and Mesoscale Convective Systems
• Regional and Global climate modeling
• Climate Dynamics
• Climate Resilience and Vulnerability
• West African Monsoon dynamics
• Solar Radiation Modification Experiments

KEY SKILLS

• High-performance computing
• Large Data Analytics and Machine Learning Techniques for Data Analysis.
• Extensive use of Programming Language and Visualization tools (Python, NCL, Fortran95, and Shell Scripting)
• Script Optimization (Optimize code to run faster)
• Other tools: CDO (Climate Data Operators), R Programming Language
• Satellite Image Processing and Linux Automation

WORK EXPERIENCE

Research Assitant - Dr. Travis O’Brien Lab (August 2021 - July 2025)

• Regional and Global Model Analysis Project (RGMA): Compound extreme weather (MCS+LPS) (2023 - present)
• Calibrated and Systematic Characterization, Attribution, and Detection of Extremes (CASCADE 3 and 4). (PI: Dr. William Collins)(2021 - present)
• Atmospheric River Tracking Methods Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP) (2021 - 2023)

Associate Instructor - Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana (August 2021 - July 2025)

• Associate Instructor for Weather and You (Fall 2024)
• Associate Instructor for Physical Meteorology and Climatology at Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana, USA. (Fall 2022)
• Facilitator for OneQuantumGhana Python tuition, collaborating with Python for Climate Applications (PY4CA). (June 2022)
• Associate Instructor for Extreme Weather (Fall 2021)

Research Assistant - Dr Jeffery N. A. Aryee Lab

• Scientific research assistant for the Global Challenges Research Fund African-Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (GCRF African-SWIFT) project, KNUST. (2020 - 2021)
• Satellite installation, data analysis, and image-processing and automation programming for Global Challenges Research Fund African-Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (GCRF African SWIFT) project in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET).

Teaching Assistant - Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Techonology, Kumasi, Ghana (2020 - 2021)

• Teaching Assistant for FORTRAN Programming, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana (Sept. 2020 - Aug. 2021)
• Facilitator for Python for Climate Application, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. (Nov. - Dec. 2020)
• Facilitator for Python for Climate Applications, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. (Oct. – Nov. 2019)

Ghana Meteorological Agency - (2020 - 2021)

• Satellite installation and automation

PROJECTS

• Atmospheric Rivers Tracking Methods Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP)
• Regional and Global Model Analysis Project (RGMA) [Compound Extreme Events and their impacts]
• Calibrated and Systematic Characterization, Attribution, and Detection of Extremes (CASCADE 3 and 4)

PUBLICATIONS

• Quagraine, K. T., O’Brien, T. A., Quagraine, K. A., Kravitz, B., & Tilmes, S. (2025). Assessing changes in atmospheric rivers under stratospheric aerosol injection using ARISE-SAI-1.5. Environmental Research: Climate.
• Quagraine, K. T., Quagraine, K. A., Nkrumah, F., Egbebiyi, T., & Klutse, N. A. B. (2025). Assessing the Impact of the South Indian Ocean High‐Pressure System Using a Novel Index. International Journal of Climatology, e70031.
• Quagraine, K. T., O’Brien, T. A., & Zhou, Y. (2025). Similarities in meteorological composites among different atmospheric river detection tools during landfall over western coastal North America. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130(6), e2024JD042163.
• Quagraine, K. A., Tye, M. R., Quagraine, K. T., Tilmes, S., Simpson, I., Nkrumah, F., … & Klutse, N. A. B. (2025). Assessing the impact of stratospheric aerosol injection on precipitation extremes in Africa using the ARISE-SAI-1.5 dataset. Environmental Research: Climate.
• Danso, D. K., Quagraine, K. T., Akintomide, A. A., Amekudzi, L. K., & Adeyeri, O. E. (2025). Near-term heatwave risk in HighResMIP models across different temperature zones of West Africa. Environmental Research: Climate, 4(2), 025006.
• Rush, W. D., Lora, J. M., Skinner, C. B., Menemenlis, S. A., Shields, C. A., Ullrich, P., … & Quagraine, K. T. (2025). Atmospheric river detection under changing seasonality and mean‐state climate: ARTMIP tier 2 paleoclimate experiments. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130(1), e2024JD042222.
• Baek, S. H., McClenny, E. E., Ullrich, P. A., Quagraine, K. T., & Collins, W. D. (2025). Response of atmospheric river width and intensity to aquaplanet warming: A detection algorithm‐and background moisture‐independent approach. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130(13), e2025JD043367.
• Quagraine, K. A., Hewitson, B., Nkrumah, F., Quagraine, K. T., & Egbebiyi, T. S. (2024). A simple subtropical high‐pressure system index over the South Atlantic. Atmospheric Science Letters, e1266.
• Aryee, J. N. A., Afrifa, F. O. T., Agyapong, K. H., Frimpong, N. G., Quagraine, K. T., & Davies, P. (2024). Quantifying climatic heavy-precipitation-induced floods in West Africa using multiple precipitation indices. Scientific African, e02309.
• O’Brien, T. A., Loring, B., Dufek, A. S., Islam, M. R., Kamnani, D., Quagraine, K. T., & Kirkpatrick, C. (2024). Atmospheric rivers in the eastern and midwestern United States associated with baroclinic waves. Geophysical Research Letters, 51(8), e2023GL107236.
• Francis Nkrumah, Kwesi Akumenyi Quagraine, Kwesi Twentwewa Quagraine, Caroline Wainwright, Gandomè Mayeul Leger Davy Quenum, Abraham Amankwah, Nana Ama Browne Klutse. Performance of CMIP6 HighResMIP on the Representation of Onset and Cessation of Seasonal Rainfall in Southern West Africa. Atmosphere 13, 999 MDPI, 2022
• Klutse, N. A. B., Quagraine, K. A., Nkrumah, F., Quagraine, K. T., Berkoh-Oforiwaa, R., Dzrobi, J. F., & Sylla, M. B. (2021). The Climatic Analysis of Summer Monsoon Extreme Precipitation Events over West Africa in CMIP6 Simulations. Earth Systems and Environment, 1-17.
• October 2020: West African Summer Monsoon Precipitation Variability as Represented by Reanalysis Datasets (Climate 8, no. 10 (2020): 111).

CONFERENCES/WORKSHOPS ATTENDED (✝ means presented)

• ✝NCAR/UCAR Graduate Visitor’s Program (CELCIUS Co-hort) (July 2025)
• Dynamical Core Summer School (June 2025)
• ✝Community Earth System Model (CESM) Workshop (June 2025)
• ✝American Geophysical Union (AGU 2024): Similarities in synoptic scale meteorology for AR detectors over the West Coast US (December 2024).
• Micro2Macro Cloud Microphysical processes workshop (October 2024).
• Calibrated and Systematic Characterization, Attribution, and Detection of Extremes (CASCADE) Workshop Retreat (July 2024).
• COLDEX Leadership Conference (July 2024).
• ✝5th International Atmospheric Rivers Conference: Atmospheric River Detectors capture baroclinic waves along the west coast of the US (June 2024).
• Earth Systems and Predictability Across Timescales Workshop (April 2024).
• World Climate Research Programme (October 2023).
• ✝Clemson Interdisciplinary Workshop on Weather and Climate Extremes (May 2022).
• ✝American Geophysical Union Conference 2022 (AGU22): Assessing atmospheric river detectors to determine underlying phenomena (December 2022).
• ✝International Atmospheric Rivers Conference (IARC) (October 2022).
• ✝Midwest Climate Conference: Assessing atmospheric river detectors to determine underlying phenomena (September 14 - September 15, 2022).
• ✝American Geophysical Union 2021 (AGU21)): Quantifying Climate Change Over West Africa: Case Assessment Of Temperature Variabilities And Extremes (December 2021).

SERVICE

• Solar Geoengineering Conference - Indiana University(Science Volunteer) (March 2024)
• Bloomington South High School Climate Engineering Volunteer. (April 5, 2024)
• Science Fest with the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science Indiana University - Bloomington Indiana (Oct. 5, 2024, and Oct. 9, 2022).
• Reviewer - Journal of Geophysical Sciences - Atmosphere (2023)
• Mentor for undergraduate research (Jan. 2021 - Aug. 2021).
• National Service to Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciecne and Techonology, Kumasi, Ghana (Aug. 2020 - Sept. 2021).
• President of the Students’ Representative Counsel, International Business Bureau, Cape Coast, Ghana (2015)

Contact Information

• 📧 Email: Kwesi T. Quagraine / kwsquagraine@gmail.com
• Kwesi T. Quagraine
• ORCID