Dr Neelesh Rampal is a climate data scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand who uses generative AI to understand how record-shattering events like the Auckland Anniversary floods will change as the planet warms. He also co-leads a global task force setting responsible standards for AI in regional climate modelling, as many of the tech giants race into the field.
Neelesh taught himself machine learning, won $1M in competitive Smart Ideas funding with no initial grant-writing experience, used it to help fund his own PhD (completed in two and a half years, full-time), then won a second bid. He was a 2026 Science New Zealand Awards finalist in the Early Career Researcher category.
We discuss:
· How generative AI is being used to forecast weather and model our future climate
· Why \"physics-informed\" machine learning beats letting a model guess freely
· What Neelesh's work means for critical infrastructure and NZ's climate resilience
Neelesh on Linkedin: https://nz.linkedin.com/in/neelesh-unleashed
NIWA People: https://niwa.co.nz/people/neelesh-rampal
A website on Neelesh's research: https://niwa.co.nz/climate-and-weather/high-resolution-climate-projections-using-physics-and-ai
And his Google Scholar research page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=D-0-fHUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
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