Jayasankar C B, Ph.D. is an international Postdoctoral Scholar in the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at FSU. Jayasankar, who is from India, has been working on coupled ocean-atmosphere regional climate models and tropical climate variability and change with a team led by Professor Vasu Misra.

When asked why he chose to do research at FSU, Jayasankar said, “I have read many journal articles related to my research area from the faculties of FSU. As a climate modeler, I was aware that FSU has an excellent high-performance computing cluster facility at the Research Computing Center that is essential to solving some of the complex issues related to regional climate variability and change. In light of this, I think having the chance to work with Professor Vasu Misra's team at FSU is a great opportunity for building my career. Jayasankar received a prestigious INSPIRE fellowship from the Department of Science & Technology, India to do his Ph.D. Before coming to FSU in March 2021, Jayasankar worked on many research projects related to the regional climate variability of the Indian summer monsoons.

After I joined FSU, I learned coupled ocean-regional climate modeling… I consider this a great achievement because Professor Misra’s group is one of the few groups working on [this] worldwide,” he said. Jayasankar is happy to have three published journal articles alongside Professor Misra and many more are currently under review. The first published article is a study of “A high resolution coupled ocean-atmosphere simulation of the regional climate over Central America,” and can be found for free here.

Apart from his modeling work, Jayasankar was also involved in monitoring the rainy season over five management districts in Florida. “This monitoring work is really exciting because of our ability to anticipate the evolution of the rainy season and the fact that we live in Florida… it is fascinating to forecast the characteristics of the rainy season well in advance,” he said.

As part of his experience researching, Jayasankar was able to mentor an undergraduate student as part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). This program “provides high-achieving students an engaging community with the flexibility and funding opportunities to explore their full range of interests” (cre.fsu.edu). This experience as a mentor has contributed to Jayasankar’s desire to eventually become a faculty member at a university. “From my Ph.D. period, I was interested in the faculty position, and I consider that as a great avenue to share knowledge with younger generations,” he said.

Aside from conducting research, Jayasankar has also enjoyed the opportunity to improve his communication skills and meet new people. “I frequently attended International Coffee Hour at the Center for Global Engagement (CGE), which was a wonderful way to meet and make friends from different parts of the world. I am an active member (handling social media) of the postdoctoral association at FSU. Also, I really enjoyed the events conducted by the Indian Students Association of Tallahassee (INSAT) and the Asian American Student Union (AASU),” he said. When asked for advice to new incoming international students and scholars, Jayasankar simply had this to say: “FSU is a very beautiful campus, enjoy its beauty and interact with the folks.”

If you want to stay up to date with Jayasankar and his ongoing research, visit his website and follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.