Megan is a fifth-year PhD student in the Climate Science program working with advisor Susan Solomon in the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Department at MIT. She studies the processes, timing, uncertainty, and impacts of modern-day climate change. Her research makes use of statistical methods to evaluate large ensembles of climate models and observational measurements. One of her focuses is on the global water cycle and its impacts on humanity. In this domain she has focused on how changes in aridity coincide with human populations, the relationship between sea surface temperature and rainfall in southern Africa under climate change, and employing Bayesian methods to evaluate climate models for optimal decision making for water infrastructure in an uncertain future.
Apart from her research, Megan has spent time living in the Democratic Republic of Congo teaching math courses at the Catholic University of Bukavu. She has also consulted for the World Bank in Uganda, contributing to a climate change impacts report and strategy plan. Megan spent four years as a research associate at MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and completed her Master’s in the Technology and Policy Program at MIT in 2012.