El Día del Agua y la Atmósfera
2026 Keynote Speakers
Kenneth Graham
Director
National Weather Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Biography:
Ken Graham is the Director of NOAA’s National Weather Service and the Assistant Administrator for Weather Services, where he oversees civilian weather operations for the United States and its territories. Before becoming the 17th NWS Director in 2022 he served as the director of the National Hurricane Center, guiding the nation through the historic 2020 hurricane season. Graham is the first director to possess such extensive operational field experience, having started his career as an intern and working his way up through forecast offices in places like New Orleans/Baton Rouge, where he led the local response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A Phoenix native, he holds a master’s degree from Mississippi State University and earned his bachelor’s in atmospheric science right here at the University of Arizona.
Grey Nearing
Research Scientist
Flood Forecasting Team
Biography:
Grey Nearing is a Research Scientist at Google, a position held since November 2021. Prior to this role, Grey served as an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis from October 2020 to November 2021 and at The University of Alabama from August 2017 to August 2020. Between June 2013 and August 2017, Grey contributed to projects as a Project Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Academic qualifications include a Doctor of Philosophy in Hydrology and a Master of Science in Biosystems Engineering, both obtained from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Purdue University.
"From Vision to Value: Demonstrating the Power of NWS Transformation"
Ken Graham
9:00 to 10:00, S107
National Weather Service transformation is underway and it's being led by a former U of A alum. Join NWS Director Ken Graham as he shares the accelerated NWS transformation timeline and demonstrates what this means for Arizona communities and for students interested in working for NWS. A key Transformation feature is the evolution of our operational staffing model. Driven by a vision to get NWS meteorologists and hydrologists eye-to-eye with emergency management decision-makers, Graham is championing a more nimble and mobile workforce that embeds NWS support where it matters most.
"Bridging the Gap Between Global AI Forecasts and Local Early Warning"
Grey Nearing
16:00 to 17:00, S107
The United Nations’ Early Warnings for All initiative has set a mandate to protect every person on Earth with an actionable early warning system by 2027. While significant improvements have been made over the past decade, coverage gaps remain. We are currently witnessing a technological tipping point where global-scale organizations are emerging, largely in the private sector, that have the ability to produce state-of-the-art forecasts across a range of natural hazards. Uniquely, these organizations can couple forecasts with near-instant dissemination across technology platforms used by billions of people on a daily basis.
This talk will explore the evolution of Google’s global flood forecasting systems, which currently provide operational flood guidance to over a billion people globally. We will discuss the transition from initial LSTM-based architectures to the new (FloodHub version 2) architectures designed to mitigate geographical bias and handle missing data in the Global South. We will detail how these hydrological models ingest atmospheric inputs, including AI-based weather predictions like GraphCast, to extend lead time accuracy. Additionally, we will touch on a suite of derivative forecast systems built on top of Google’s hydrology model.
The emergence of new AI-based forecasting technologies creates an opportunity. While, the Single Voice Principle states that disaster warnings should come from mandated agencies, global technology platforms can instantly disseminate warnings to billions of people, including in countries that lack national capacity. We will discuss the "hard problem" in this space, which is likely to define the future of Early Warnings for All as both a technology challenge and a global governance challenge.