Dr Chaojiao Sun

Chaojiao is a senior researcher at CSIRO who studies how the movement of the ocean affects the climate and the environment. Chaojiao has a wide range of research interests including understanding how ocean currents and tides could potentially protect the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs under climate change, providing science-based solutions to support the blue economy through ecological predictions about the environment, deriving detailed climate projections using dynamical downscaling and machine learning approaches, and developing decision support tool for forecasting of harmful algal blooms.

Chaojiao is currently the Research Group Leader of the Ocean Dynamics and Ecosystems Group in the Coastal and Oceanic Systems Research Program at CSIRO Environment. Chaojiao completed a BSc (Hons) in Geophysics at University of Science and Technology of China, a PhD in Physical Oceanography at Oregon State University, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Chaojiao worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for about 8 years, where she developed methods for assimilating satellite snow observations into a NASA catchment model, and assimilating ocean observations into a global ocean model to improve seasonal prediction. Since joining CSIRO in 2008, Chaojiao has worked on ocean climate downscaling using the high-resolution BLUELink OFAM model, ocean data assimilation to improve model prediction of upwelling, numerical modelling of dredge plumes (as a theme leader and project leader of the WAMSI Dredging Science Node), development of an early warning system for harmful algal blooms, and climate downscaling for the Great Barrier Reef under the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program.