Hi! My name is Trinish and I’m a PhD Candidate studying extreme events under a changing climate. I used to be an electrical engineer in the telecom industry before switching fields to pursue my passion: figuring out how we can adapt to a warming, riskier world.
Have a question, interest in collaboration, or just want to connect? I’d love to hear from you!
Research Interests
My research focuses on quantifying spatiotemporal characteristics of extreme precipitation and extreme heat events at local, regional, and global scales. I’m currently trying to understand:
- How the spatial scales of extreme events are changing over time in the US and globally, and
- How we can better characterize the probability distributions of extreme events.
I am interested in applying my research towards:
- Developing new methods to assess the tail risks of rare weather events
- Quantifying exposure to climate hazards
- Informing future climate adaptation decisions
Current Projects
Spatial Scales of Daily Extreme Precipitation in the US and Globally
Large-area extreme preciptiation events can highly damaging and can cause numerous risks to emergency response, disaster preparedness, insurance portfolio management, local and downstream flood risk, community resilience. We aim to identify climatology and trends of the area affected by individual daily extreme precipitation events in the US and globally using event-based geospatial analyses of gridded preciptiation data. Our study of spatial scales of extreme precipitation event areas in the US is under review at Geophysical Research Letters. (Find our preprint here!)
Spatial Scales of Humid Heatwaves in the Southwest US and Northwest Mexico
We are working to understand how dry and humid heatwaves are changing across the western half of the US–Mexico Border Region using geospatial methods. Using gridded reanalyses and an event-based framework, we are examining whether humid/nighttime heat stress events are becoming more widespread or penetrating farther inland, with direct implications for cross-border public health and humanitarian risk in a warming climate.
Global Data Justice and Quantifying the Intensity of Current and Future Rare Extreme Events
We examine how unequal lengths of weather records around the world limit our ability to reliably estimate rare extreme events, such as 1-in-100-year event for heat or rainfall, using a generalized extreme value (GEV) framework. By combining extreme value theory, simulations, and real-world data constraints, we are showing how data scarcity and the underlying climate together amplify uncertainty in high-impact risk estimates, with disproportionate consequences for regions in the Global South and other data-poor areas.
Publications
Chatterjee, T., Touma, D., Sobel, A., & Horton, R. M. (2026). Climatology and Trends in Spatial Scales of Extreme Precipitation Over Land in the Contiguous US. Geophysical Research Letters, 53(8), e2025GL120662. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL120662
Seeteram, N., Shi, L., Mach, K., Carrère, A., Chatterjee, T., Garner, A., & Horton, R. (2025, pre-publication). Challenges and opportunities in scaling climate-resilient housing solutions. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6322825/v1
Sprague, N. L., Uong, S. P., Zonnevylle, H., Chatterjee, T., Hernández, D., Rundle, A. G., & Ekenga, C. C. (2024). The CHANGE (Climate Health ANalysis Grading Evaluation) tool for weight of evidence reviews on climate change and health research. Environmental Health, 23(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-023-01040-4
Education and Work Experience
Doctoral Student at Columbia University | New York, NY
Sep. 2022 - Present
PhD Candidate in Earth and Environmental Sciences Expected Graduation: Summer 2027
Advisor: Radley Horton, Columbia Climate School
Senior Engineer at Qualcomm, Inc | San Diego, CA
Aug. 2019 - Jun. 2022
Primary job duties included:
- Developing test automation procedures and software for 4G and 5G RF conformance testing
- Conducting performance testing on new chipsets for internal and external clients
- Managing and collaborating with internal and external teams to resolve urgent performance issues
University of Maryland, College Park | College Park, MD
Aug. 2015 - May 2019
B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Minor in Asian-American Studies
GPA: 3.95/4.0, Cum Laude
Banneker-Key Full Merit Scholarship