Yuri Simonov
Vice-president of WMO Commission for Weather, Water, Climate and Environmental Services (SERCOM); Chair of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Yuri Simonov has been working at Russian hydrometeorological service for hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring (Roshydromet) for more than 10 years. He is leading activities in the area of hydrological services – flood forecasts and warnings, water resources management decision support and other topics. Yuri is actively involved in the operational and production activities, including interaction with various users of hydrometeorological services, including governmental organizations and private sector.
Marcelo Uriburu Quirno
Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Senior hydrologist at CONAE, the Argentine space agency, Marcelo is a Civil Engineer (University of Buenos Aires, UBA) and M.Sc. in Hydrology (National University of Ireland, Galway, NUIG). Since 2020, vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM – WMO), Marcelo is leading several activities in its workplan, including the provision of scientific and technical support to APFM and IDMP programmes. Marcelo is a part-time Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, UBA, and has 25+ years of experience in operational hydrology for flood forecasting, and design hydrology for infrastructure works.
William Scharffenberg
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Now retired, Dr Scharffenberg formerly served with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for over 22 years. His career focused on the design and development of the Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS) for use in hydrologic prediction and water resources assessment. He made notable contributions in the initial feature offerings for uncertainty analysis and GIS-based catchment delineation. He has been engaged with WMO in various modes since 2008.
Leandro Giordano
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Leandro is a researcher at Argentina’s National Water Institute (INA): he oversees the development of the information system for forecasting floods and water level falls in main rivers, namely the Uruguay, Paraguay and Paraná.
Leandro also has an extensive teaching experience in applied mathematics and geography in university of Buenos Aires and National University of General Sarmiento.
Since 2017, he has been an active member in several working groups in operational hydrology in the WMO.
Leandro holds degrees in geography and operational hydrology.
Paolo Reggiani
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Paolo is a full Professor and holds the Chair of “Water Resources Management and Climate Impact Research” at the University of Siegen, Germany since October 2014.
He worked over 10 years for Deltares in Delft, Netherlands, where he played a leading role in hydrological analysis throughout Europe and gained experience in coordinating large multi-disciplinary Research and Development projects for international organizations.
He also worked in various consulting and scientific projects in Australia, Asia, Africa and Latin America. An important focal point of his work has been the interface between numerical weather prediction and hydrological modeling for operational flow forecasting in data-poor areas.
Paolo holds a diploma in Environmental Engineering from the University of Trento, Italy, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Western Australia.
Elma Kazazic
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Now retired, Elma formerly served with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for over 24 years. Elma was leading and managing flood forecasting and warning services Nationally and in Victoria and Tasmania (Australia).
She has extensive experience in operational flood forecasting and warning services with expertise in hydrological modelling, flood forecasting systems and processes, flood warning data collection and management systems and strategic leadership and management.
Elma holds a Master of Engineering Science from Monash University, Australia. She has been engaged with WMO in several activities since 2019.
Guy Reshef
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Guy Reshef started his career as a hydrologist in the Israel Hydrological Service. He has 17 years’ experience working at Israel Water Authority as a supervisor, head of water quality division and then Deputy Director General. He is currently also the head of Israel Hydrological Service Division.
Guy Reshef holds a M.Sc.Agr in Soil and Water Science from Jerusalem Hebrew university.
Angela Chiara Corina
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Angela Corina is an Italian government official, of the national Civil Protection Department, with more than twenty years of experience in the activities for the management and development of the national warning system for hydrogeological and hydraulic risk. With a background in environmental engineering, specialization in hydraulic risk and emergency management, she is responsible for the coordination of various research activities in the field of operational hydrology in collaboration with the main Italian scientific institutions. She is involved as an expert in various international capacity building and technical assistance projects in the risk reduction sector. Hydrological Adviser of the Italian Permanent Representative with WMO, and since 2019 Regional Hydrological Adviser for WMO-Regional Association VI -Europe.
Ji Youn Sung
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Ji youn Sung is an expert on hydrology of the Republic of Korea, working for the Han River Flood Control Office, Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea. Sung has been working on the various hydrological field such as the flood forecast, dam operation management, hydrological investigation since 2007. She takes part in the establishment of “Master Plan of Hydrological Investigation (2020-2029)” and its implementation to organize the National Hydrological networks installation.
Sung’s academic basis is a civil engineering, with a Ph.D. on Short Term Flood Prediction of Tributaries using TFN and ANN models.
Hyeonjun Kim
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Hyeonjun has over 30 years of experience mainly in the Water Resource Research Division in Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT). He is specialized in Rainfall-runoff modelling, water cycle analysis, ecohydrology, urban hydrology and paleohydrology (disaster in history).
Hyeonjun holds a Master’s degree and a PhD of Engineering from Seoul National University, South Korea.
Emmanuel Brocard
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Emmanuel has 10 years of experience working for the National Meteorological Service and the National Hydrological Service of Switzerland. He was the executive director of the National Steering Committee for Natural Hazards. He is now working for the flood forecasting and warning service and leads several hydrological projects of national importance.
He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Bern, Switzerland and an MSc from the University of Bremen, Germany.
Helvi-Nangula Nalitje Shalongo
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
For the past 8 years, Helvi has been working as a hydrological technician then a hydrologist for the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in Windhoek, Namibia. She has extensive experience in hydrological data monitoring and integrated water resources management.
Helvi holds a Master of Arts Degree in Geoinformation Science from the university of Namibia.
Rong Zhang
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Since 2019, Rong Zhang (PhD) became associate professor at Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute (NHRI) under the Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Transport and National Energy Administration, Nanjing, China. Her research areas are hydrology and hydroclimatology, and has more than 10 years of experiences in the related field. Her interests include hydrological modelling and forecasting, climate change impact assessment, downscaling of hydrological impact scenarios and development of climate scenarios.
Rong earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering from Hohai University of China; and she holds a doctorate in Territorial Engineering and Environmental Sciences from University of Évora of Portugal. Rong has previously worked at Brazilian National Centre for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) for more than 3 years.
Reggina Cabrera
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Reggina has over 30 years of experience in the field of hydrology, hydraulics and water forecast.
She spent 24 years at the National Weather Service – NWS (USA), first as a senior hydrologist, then as the group leader for the Hydraulics group, Hydrologic Science and Modeling Branch, then as the Chief of hydrologic services division and finally as a hydrologist in charge.
Prior to NWS, she has worked as a hydrologist for U.S Geological Survey and as a hydraulic engineer for the Ministry of Public Works, Chile.
Reggina also has a great deal of experience in interacting with various stakeholders and in technology transfer in the area of hydrology, by collaborating with National Weather Service International Activities and other entities.
Since her recent retirement, she has continued working with WMO in several activities.
John Fenwick
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
John Fenwick is a hydrometric and environmental monitoring consultant.
He has expertise in the management of a wide range of environmental monitoring operations, including national scale hydrometric, climate, sea-level, water quality and related networks. He managed and planned a variety of projects relating to water resources monitoring for a wide range of clients in New Zealand and overseas. Additionally, John trains staff in general environmental data collection techniques and technologies. Finally, he has extensive practical experience in assessing data needs and implementation of field measurements, data capture and processing operations.
John holds a diploma in field hydrology and certificates in management and quality assurance.
Mohamed Housseini Ibrahim
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Mohamed has an extensive experience in the academic world as a professor in hydrology at Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey in Niger and a professor of general hydraulics and dams at the Mining School and Geology of Niamey.
He worked as a main civil and hydraulics engineer at the national directorate of hydrology. Mohamed is also the focal point of CREWS project at the Ministry of Hydraulics and Sanitation.
Currently, he is the Director of Hydrology at the General Directorate of Water Resources / Ministry of Hydraulics and Sanitation in Niger.
Mohamed has a diploma of hydraulic engineering from National School of Hydraulic, Algeria and holds a Master of Science in Hydrology and Civil Engineering from Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute of Rabat, Morocco.
Céline Cattoën-Gilbert
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Dr. Céline Cattoën-Gilbert is a hydrological forecasting scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). She holds an engineering degree (M.Sc.) in applied mathematics (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, France), and masters’ degree (M.Sc.) and a doctoral degree (PhD) in mathematics (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand).
Since 2016, she leads NIWA’s Floods and Hazards research, including the development of Aotearoa New Zealand’s first national flood awareness system proof of concept for ungauged catchments. Upon request, she joined the West Coast Flood risk assessment team and provided expert scientific advice during multiple Westport flood events in 2022. Her research focuses on hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting systems, flood and inundation modelling, forecast communication and end-user decision-making.
Kevin Sene
Scientific Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Kevin has a background in consultancy and research in flood risk management and water resources on projects in Europe, Africa and Asia. This has included developing good practice guidelines and leading research into probabilistic flood forecasting.
Now an independent consultant and Honorary Researcher at Lancaster Environment Centre, he previously worked at UKCEH (as CEH Wallingford) and a large engineering consultancy. His publications include books on flash floods and flood warning and forecasting and an award-winning book on hydrometeorology.
He has a PhD in Applied Mathematics and is a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Geographical Society.
Milica Djordjevic
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Head of Weather Watch Department in Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Meteorologist specialized and responsible for weather forecast and severe weather warnings, flash flood warnings, weather monitoring and database management.
From 2018 to 2021 worked in WMO as Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS) project officer responsible for managing of the project, supporting the development of the System and implementation of FFGS and flash flood warning in more than 60 WMO Member countries. Since 2022 member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services. Responsible for the Sustainable development and improvement of FFGS with Global Coverage and supporting integration of hydrological centres in GDPFS manual.
Milica holds MSc degrees in meteorology.
Marie-Amélie Boucher
Member of the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SERCOM - WMO)
Marie-Amélie Boucher is a hydrology professor at Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada. In 2022, she was a visiting scientist at the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast in Reading, (UK). Her main research interests cover different aspects of hydrological ensemble forecasting, such as data assimilation (for snow, in particular), hydrological modelling, statistical pre- and post-processing, but also forecast communication and value. Applications include flood forecasting but also hydro-power production. Many of her previous and current research projects are in close collaboration with governmental operational forecasting agencies, such as the Quebec ministry of Environment and Environment and Climate change Canada.
Ralph Philip
Emma Brown
Emma is a Technical Director and a Chartered Civil Engineer with 25 years’ international experience in the design, configuration and review of flood forecasting and Early Warning Systems (EWS), and in leading supporting research programmes. Emma has wide, international experience in the development of hydrological models and flood forecasting studies. She leads multi-disciplinary technical teams to configure and implement flood modelling, forecasting and warning solutions for clients and governments, for community-based systems through to national-scale systems. She has led teams as Technical Lead, Project Manager and Project Director. Emma has identified the need for, performed and mentored staff, in research into the development of more effective flood forecasting systems, forecast accuracy assessment, and tools for probabilistic flood risk forecasting. Emma is the Flood Forecasting Team Manager at HR Wallingford. She is currently the technical assurance lead for a project to deliver a significant EWS in Latin America.
Stefan Uhlenbrook
Director Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere Branch, WMO
Dr Stefan Uhlenbrook’ s main expertise includes water management, hydrological processes and modelling across scales (i.e., floods and droughts), and the water-energy-food-ecosystems nexus. He is a renown academic and has led/contributed to many projects in Africa, Asia, Europe and MENA that have demonstrated the impact of global changes on water, and they provided effective solutions to address these challenges through integrated approaches. He is experienced on translating science-based knowledge to effective policies, strategies and services that contribute to environmental, economic and societal sustainability. Since September 2022, Stefan leads the Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere program of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). He is very exciting to strengthen the early warning systems for floods and droughts as well as water resources assessment and management worldwide. During 2019-2022, he has focused his interest to water and food system transformations to provide healthy and nutritious food for all while considering the vital role of water and ecosystems. Previously, he served as the director of water, food and ecosystems at IWMI (2019-2022, Sri Lanka), Coordinator of UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP, 2015-2019, Italy), and the Deputy Director and acting Director of UNESCO-IHE (now IHE-Delft, Netherlands, 2005-2015). He has been a professor at IHE-Delft (2005 onwards) and Delft University of Technology (2009-2020), The Netherlands. He did his PhD (1999) and habilitation (2003) at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Hwirin Kim
Chief of Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Before joining WMO, Dr Kim developed her career at the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea (2005-2019), having been the first hydrologist in the Ministry. She was a leader of the Forecasting and Disaster Risk Reduction team of the Han River Flood Control Office, mainly working in the areas of flood forecasting and integrated water resources management. She holds a master’s degree (M.Sc.) in Hydrology and a Doctorate degree (PhD) in Water Resources Engineering, Korea University. She has had a vast experience in the international arena, where she made significant contributions to multiple programmes as a member of the Advisory Working Group (AWG) of WMO Commission for Hydrology (2016-2019), as a Theme leader of WMO Regional Association II Working Group Hydrological Services (2012-2019), and as focal point of both the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme (2011-2014) and the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee (2010-2014).
Giacomo Teruggi
Scientific Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
With a background in environmental engineering and hydrology, Giacomo Teruggi has been working since 2004 for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), where he is Head of the Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM) Technical Support Unit. The TSU manages the HelpDesk on Integrated Flood Management (IFM), providing capacity building and implementing pilot projects on IFM.
Having understood the multi-disciplinarily approach of IFM, which involves not only hydrological sciences but also land use planning, restoration of riverine ecosystems and socio-economic considerations, Giacomo has been pushing for an increased involvement of environmental and social scientist to increase outreach of IFM concepts. At the same time, he has been coordinating and supporting expert groups of the WMO Standing Committee for Hydrological Services on assessment methodologies of national capabilities and needs in end-to-end early warning systems for floods.
Ramesh Tripathi
Project Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Ramesh is the project manager for the Volta Basin Flood and Drought Management (VFDM) project. He has accomplished expertise in disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), disaster response and recovery activities with international non-governmental organizations and local organisations both in India and Nepal. Previously, Ramesh has worked on several impact assessments of community development programs. Ramesh holds MSc degrees from University of Trento, Italy in Smart Community Design and Management (SCODEM) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India in Disaster Management.
Rokhaya Ba
Associate Project Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Rokhaya Ba assists in the coordination and provision of Secretariat Support to the experts involved in activities under the Standing Committee on Hydrological Services (SC-HYD). She also works as a Project Officer for the WMO Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS) project.
Rokhaya holds a bachelor and a master’s in environmental sciences from Lausanne University, Switzerland, with a specialization in ecohydrology.
Valentin Aich
Scientific Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Valentin Aich joined Global Water Partnership (GWP) as Senior Water and Climate Specialist in 2020 and he is seconded to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), where he is working for the Technical Support Unit of the joint flood (APFM) and drought (IDMP) programs of both organizations as well as coordinating other joint activities. Previously Valentin was Associate Scientific Officer with the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) of WMO. Before joining WMO, Valentin worked for 2 years as Climate Change Adaptation Specialist for UNEP in Afghanistan. He is guest scientist with the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) where he conducts research for nine years with focus on hydroclimatic extremes and where he has written his PhD thesis about floods in the Niger basin.
Najeebulah Saraj
FFGS Project Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Najeebullah Saraj is a project officer for the Flash Flood Guidance System with Global Coverage programme, mainly supporting the FFGS project and Standing Committee on Hydrology and Services (SC-HYD). Before joining WMO, Najeeb worked in different positions in the Afghanistan National Meteorological service. Najeeb Saraj holds Bachelor’s in Hydrometeorology from Kabul University, Afghanistan.
Nakul Prasad
Project Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO
Luis Roberto Silva Vara
Scientific Officer, Hydrological and Water Resources Services Division, WMO