Amir AghaKouchak is an Assistant Professor of Civil l and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research crosses the boundaries between hydrology, climatology, remote sensing to address critical global water resource issues. His group has developed models for monitoring and assessing climatic extremes including the Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction System (GIDMaPS; http://drought.eng.uci.edu/). Dr. AghaKouchak is the principal investigator of several research grants funded by the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). Website: http://amir.eng.uci.edu/