Dr. Marina Astitha is an Associate Professor and the Associate Department Head at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Connecticut (UConn). Dr. Astitha’s expertise lie in the areas of atmospheric numerical modeling (weather and air quality) from regional to global scales. She is leading the Atmospheric Modeling and Air Quality Group since joining UConn in 2013. Her research program focuses on improving the prediction of extreme weather events, wind prediction for wind farm facilities, and integration of multi-media modeling systems with machine learning to solve environmental problems. She is committed in supporting, mentoring, and inspiring the next generation of engineers to innovate, lead and thrive in solving complex environmental problems and sustain a healthy, diverse and equitable society in the years to come Dr. Efthymios Nikolopoulos is Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rutgers University. His research focuses on the integration of remote sensing observations with numerical and statistical modeling to advance understanding and predictability of water cycle components and weather-related hazards. Dr. Nikolopoulos has authored/co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and 8 book chapters in the areas of hydrometeorology, remote sensing of precipitation, flood hydrology and landslide/debris flow prediction. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Hydrology and the recipient of the NASA Earth System Science Graduate Fellowship and the Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellowship