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Staff Profile

Dr Haider Ali

Research Associate (Intense)

  • Address: 3.21 Cassie Building, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU
Background

Research Associate

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Haider_Ali22 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=o0EY7boAAAAJ&hl=en 

Dr. Haider Ali is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. He has around five years’ experience in engineering and environmental hydrology in research with a focus on understanding the effects of climate change on extreme rainfall events and flooding. His research interests include trends, variability and physical understanding of changing extreme events, temperature scaling, monsoon systems, design flood estimation and water resources management. Developing methods for understanding the extreme precipitation and temperature relationships (scaling) using quality-controlled sub-daily precipitation data has improved physical understanding of global rainfall climatology and resulted in several high-quality publications. This work was featured twice as Editor’s Highlights (2021 and 2022 respectively) on Eos. Haider is also interested in climate impacts and risk, working on the INTENSE (global intense rainfall and drivers), FUTURE-DRAINAGE (flash flooding) and Hydro-Climatic Projections (CMIP5 downscaling) projects. He is currently working on the GCRF Living Deltas project, improving the understanding of the change in tropical cyclone activity and monsoon over the South-east Asia Deltas. He also manages the logistics for the analysis and climate modelling advice for the Living Deltas Hub. He has a h-index of 13 (Google Scholar) from ~15 ISI-cited publications and has served as a reviewer for 7 international journals and has co-convened a session at the EGU 2023 General Assembly. Haider has five years of experience as a Teaching Assistant working with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and has supervised (supervising) MSc (PhD) students at Newcastle University.

 

Training and qualification history

2013 – 2018        PhD (Causes of observed and projected changes in daily and sub-daily precipitation extremes in major urban areas in India), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (India), 9.1/10 CGPA, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) India Grant Awardee.

2009 – 2013        Bachelor in Technology (Civil Engineering), Aligarh Muslim University (India), 9.5/10 CGPA, Position Holder, University Undergraduate Scholarship Awardee (2012 and 2013).

 

Employment history

April 2024-              Senior Research Associate, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University

Dec 2018 – March 2024       Research Associate, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University

April 2018- October 2018    Research Associate, School of Civil Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar India

 

Research Experience

·        Project: Huracan Project

Post: Research Associate

Duration: 1 February 2024- present

Line manager: Prof. Hayley J. Fowler, Newcastle University

 

·        Project: Living Deltas (15M UKRI Grant)

Post: Research Associate

Duration: 1 February 2020-31 January 2024

PI: Dr. Andrew Richard Large, Newcastle University

 

·        Project: FUTURE-DRAINAGE: Ensemble climate change rainfall estimates for sustainable drainage

Post: Research Associate

Duration: 1 October 2020-30 June 2021

PI: Prof. Hayley J. Fowler, Newcastle University

 

·        Project: INTENSE: “INTElligent use of climate models for adaptatioN to non-Stationary hydrological Extremes” (2M ERC Consolidators Grant)

Post: Research Associate

Duration: 5 December 2018-31 January 2020

PI: Prof. Hayley J. Fowler, Newcastle University

 

·        Project: Statistical Downscaling for hydro-climatic projections with CMIP5 simulations to assess Impacts of Climate Change

 

Post: Research Associate

 

Duration: 12 April 2018- 16 October 2018

PI: Dr. Vimal Mishra, IIT Gandhinagar

 

 

Awards/Fellowships

·        Awarded the RENKEI ECR 2022-2023 Fellowship from the British Council to develop networking and international collaborations including several workshops and a week winter school at Kyoto University.

·        Received Academic Pay Review Award 2022 and 2023 for exceptional performance at Newcastle University.

·        My paper "Towards quantifying the uncertainty in estimating observed scaling rates" published in 2022 in the GRL was featured as an Editor’s Highlight, published on Eos.org. (Fewer than 2% of journal articles are featured in this way)

·        My paper "Consistent large‐scale response of hourly extreme precipitation to temperature variation overland" published in 2021 in the GRL was featured as an Editor’s Highlight, published on Eos.org.

 

·        Awarded Ministry of Human Resources Development Fellowship by Indian Government during entire PhD (2013-2018).

·        Start-early PhD Fellowship (2013) at IIT Gandhinagar. This competitive fellowship was granted to only the top three university ranked students followed by a written test and an interview.

 

·        Two cash prizes worth INR 25000 each by IIT Gandhinagar for excellence in research in 2014 and 2017 respectively.

·        Travel grants worth INR 2 lakh for presenting conference paper at AGU Fall Meeting 2014 in San Francisco and AGU Fall meeting 2017 in New Orleans, USA.

·        Awarded “University Undergraduate Scholarship” for academic excellence by A.M.U. Vice-chancellor in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

 


Research
I am a recognized leading researcher in my field, known for advancing understanding of flash floods caused by global warming. My published papers pioneer the explanation of links between heavy rainfall events and rising temperatures. My involvement in the €2M ERC Consolidators Grant INTENSE project (PI: Fowler) resulted in four first-authored publications in GRL (Impact Factor: 5.58). Two were Editor’s Highlights on Eos.org, a recognition held by fewer than 2% of journal articles. Another recent paper on tropical cyclones in GRL, ranked in the top 5% of all research outputs by Altmetric and received significant media attention from over 60 international media articles (including the Telegraph and the Carbon Brief). Additionally, my paper on floods in India, published in Weather & Climate Extremes (Impact Factor: 7.76), is among the most downloaded and cited in the journal.
Teaching

Teaching and PGT Supervision:

 

I have demonstrated a collegiate approach by supporting colleagues in the Water group to cover teaching and to develop new content on CEG8525 (Hydrosystems Processes and Data Analysis). I am also involved in the teaching of CEG8526 (Hydrosystems Modelling and Management) and delivering practical sessions on climate modelling in CEG8526.

 

I have supported MSc dissertation marking and co-supervised three students on their MSc Dissertation Projects in Water Resources (CEG8596) in 2018, 2022 and 2023, spending around 2 hours per week on their supervision. One student (Leonard Wang) won an award for the best MSc project in 2022. Another student (Usman Bala) has continued his study here as a PGR and is working with me to convert his thesis into a publication.

 

Teaching Assistant during PhD:

 

I also served as a Teaching Assistant for five years at IIT Gandhinagar. My main role was to lead teaching in the courses: Introduction to Hydrology, Advanced Engineering Hydrology, Fluid Mechanics, and Hydrology & Hydraulics to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. I jointly developed the learning materials, delivered lectures, led group discussions, ran hands-on experiments, and provided feedback and support to check students’ progress. During that time, I received very positive feedback from my students, especially on my approach to linking current events related to water to the topics I was teaching.

 

Publications