Tell us about yourself:
My name is Eunsaem Cho. In Korean, my name means "good spring water," and I am fortunate that my life has aligned with it rather well. I am currently working as a Postdoctoral Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Hydrological Sciences Laboratory and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland. I live in Maryland with my wife and two sons, a 5-year-old big boy and a 4-month-old little baby. Life with a newborn is tough, but it is also the happiest time of my life.
What is your research about?
My research has been driven by three questions: (1) what is the impact of high-rise buildings on urban flooding? (2) what is the impact of storm surge and sea level rise on coastal flooding? (3) what is the impact of groundwater condition on snow-driven flooding? The first shaped my Ph.D. at Korea University, the second my postdoctoral work at Florida State University, and I am now addressing the third at NASA. These questions share a common thread: the factors we have long overlooked are often the ones that matter most for accurate flood prediction and for making our communities sustainable.
What excites you about your research?
For me, the most exciting part of research is that it has never stopped challenging me. Working with new methods and data is demanding, but the joy of new understanding far outweighs the difficulty. I felt this when I ran my first urban flooding experiments at Korea University, when I built compound flooding simulations at Florida State University, and when I first began working with GRACE/GRACE-FO data at NASA. Each step was genuinely hard, yet each one gave me a kind of learning that made the struggle worth it. That cycle of stepping into something unfamiliar and finally understanding it is exactly what keeps me energized.
What broader importance does your research have for society?
Extreme floods are occurring more frequently. The bigger concern is that we are also seeing entirely new types of floods, ones that were never a problem before. New threats require new frameworks, not just incremental updates to old ones. By bringing previously overlooked drivers into flood models, my research aims to give communities, engineers, and policymakers a clearer picture of the risk we face, so today's decisions can hold up in tomorrow's climate.
What inspired you to pursue a career in Earth Science?
What inspired me to pursue Earth Science was the realization that this work can make our planet more sustainable and make people safer. To me, that felt like research with the power to change the world, and something worth devoting my whole life to. What first drew me in was rainwater harvesting, a topic I became fascinated with when I started graduate school. I loved the idea that rain falls equally on everyone, and that something given so freely and fairly from the sky could help address deeply unequal water problems. That sense of fairness, of using a shared natural resource to confront inequity, is what pulled me into this field.
What are your short and/or long-term goals in your EPSP journey?
For me, the next step is to keep challenging myself. My goal is to advance an independent research program tackling compound flooding, snow hydrology, hydrological extremes, and sustainable water infrastructure.
Given unlimited funding and access to resources, what is your dream project that you would pursue?
With unlimited funding, my dream project would be a long-term documentary that brings the world's leading water scientists together to tell the story of water on our planet. My hope is that it could reach far beyond the research community and help people feel the urgency and wonder of water the way I do.
What else do you do? Any hobbies or interests outside of work?
Before having kids, I had many hobbies: baseball, basketball, cycling, and swimming. Now I have none, and I could not be happier about it. The highlight of my life outside the lab lately was a 2-mile Fun Run at NASA GCDC, where my five-year-old son finished first. Nothing I did before he was born has ever come close to that feeling.
Learn more about Eunsaem at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saemrnt