RCC Spotlight: Dr. Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf

Dr. Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Florida State University. Dr. Ahmadisharaf joined FSU in August 2020 as a research faculty. Currently, he is affiliated with the FAMU-FSU Resilient Infrastructure & Disaster Response Center (RIDER), which aims to implement living laboratories in real-life urban and rural communities and settings, grounded in the scientific exploration of the complex and nonlinear interactions among systems. Among his responsibilities at RIDER, Dr. Ahmadisharaf also codirects the Water Sustainability and Coastal Hazards laboratory. In 2024, he was selected as the National Academy of Sciences' Early Career Research Fellow. He is also part of the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Science Team. 

Dr. Ahmadisharaf working with two PhD students on his team Azizbek Nuriddinov and Maryam Pakdehi. 

Dr. Ahmadisharaf and his team’s research focuses on environmental and water resources. They develop quantitative frameworks that enhance predictive capabilities to characterize flooding and surface water quality. These models aid in risk mitigation decisions, including the implementation of nature-based solutions, retrofitting existing infrastructure, and maintaining the water body and ecosystem health. This in turn, supports urban planners’ and other officials’ ability to ensure environments are properly maintained and keeps potential future economic impacts to a minimum. 

Dr. Ahmadisharaf's work is revolutionary, because his predictive high-resolution models can forecast critical flooding characteristics, such as timing, depth, and speed. He also develops statistical methods that predict compound floods due to precipitation, tide and storm surge. Unlike traditional methods, Dr. Ahmadisharaf develops probabilistic models that incorporate the uncertainties in modeling and translate the uncertainties for simulated flood outputs and subsequent decision-making. These insights allow him and his team to inform decision makers, enabling them to implement mitigation strategies and reduce future risks and losses, ultimately creating safer environments. 

A flooding simulation, courtesy of Dr. Ahmadisharaf. 

Looking forward, Dr. Ahmadisharaf and his team are eager to utilize the Research Computing Center (RCC) to enhance their computational capabilities for forecasting and modeling. High-resolution models in their field require both time and immense computational power. Dr. Ahmadisharaf emphasizes the need for fast and accurate models, particularly for scenarios like predicting floods and hurricane impacts. However, processing such data demands substantial computational time. 

By leveraging the RCC's resources, he looks forward to reducing runtime and improving the reliability of his computational forecasts. Additionally, given the inherent uncertainties in these models, it is crucial to use ensemble modeling, which allows for multiple scenario evaluations to better predict potential outcomes and evaluate a comprehensive range of scenarios. Using RCC resources, such as the High Performance Computing cluster, will further improve Dr. Ahmadisharaf's research.