Clara Draper

Image of Clara Draper

Position

Physical Scientist

Division

Modeling and Data Assimilation

Affiliation

NOAA

About

Dr. Clara Draper is a physical scientist at the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) in Boulder, Colorado. She joined NOAA in 2017, most recently from the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), where she worked from 2011 to 2017. Dr. Draper's research is focused on coupled land/atmosphere data assimilation. Her current projects include developing an improved snow data assimilation scheme for NOAA's global weather forecasting system, prototyping a new soil moisture and soil temperature analysis for use in the same system, developing perturbation strategies to account for land model uncertainty in atmospheric ensembles, and improving the observed information obtained from the assimilation of Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observations.

Research Interests

  • Land data assimilation for improved land and atmospheric forecasts
  • Theoretical and practical aspects of land data assimilation and coupled data assimilation
  • Assimilation of novel land observations
  • Reducing the negative impact of biases in land data assimilation
  • Land/atmosphere coupling

Professional Service

  • The Cryosphere - Editor (2024- )
  • WWRP Data Assimilation and Observing Systems Working Group - Member (2023- )
  • International Earth Surface Working Group - Chair (2023- )
  • NASA SMAP Science Team - PI (2021-2023)
  • AMS Committee on Hydrology - Member (2017-2022)
  • AMS Annual Meeting, Conference on Hydrology - Chair (2022), Co-chair (2021, 2020)

Education

  • PhD., Engineering, University of Melbourne (Australia), 2011
  • MSc., Meteorology, Monash University (Australia) , 2006
  • BSc./Beng., Maths/Environmental Engineering, University of Melbourne (Australia), 2001