SAJAD VAHEDIZADE

A diligent and passionate data science intern with strong organizational skills in statistical and analytical techniques to thrive in demanding digital intelligence processing environments. A resilient PhD candidate ready to build data-driven solutions to business problems with desire to exploit cutting-edge AI/ML frameworks (from data ingestion and preprocessing to model deployment and monitoring) in a full-time {\it data scientist} position.

I. Deep neural network for nowcasting and retrievals of global precipitation

• Implemented an MLP deep neural network algorithm and a recurrent neural network (LSTM) to retrieve the precipitation occurrence and phase using 20 years of the IMERG dataset,
• Increased the true positive rate up to 95%, while the false positive rate limited to around 4%.

II. Using signal detection to improve the snowfall retrievals in terms of type-I and -II errors

• Designed a hypothesis testing problem to condition the precipitation retrievals through the Silhouette cluster analysis and the Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing,
• Reduced the error in the estimations and improved the accuracy by 6–8%.

III. Snowfall retrievals using Bayesian inference techniques

• Developed a physically-informed Bayesian retrieval algorithm using the coincidences of CloudSat and GPM satellites to estimate the snowfall occurrence and its intensity with an RMSE of 0.15–0.2 mm/hr.

• Machine Learning [CS]
• Mathematics of Image and Data Analysis [MATH]
• Nonlinear Optimization [EE]
• Intro to Data Mining [CS]
• Optimal Filtering and Estimation [EE]

1. S. Vahedizade, and Co-authors. On the Effects of Cloud Water Content on Passive Microwave Snowfall Retrievals. Journal of Remote Sensing of Environment, 2022. [IF: 13.85]
2. S. Vahedizade, and Co-authors. Passive Microwave Signatures and Retrieval of High-Latitude Snowfall Over Open Oceans and Sea Ice: Insights From Coincidences of GPM and CloudSat Satellites, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2021. [IF: 8.12]
3. F.J. Turk, S. Vahedizade, and Co-authors. Applications of a CloudSat-TRMM and CloudSat-GPM Satellite Coincidence Dataset. Remote Sensing, 2021. [IF: 5.34]