Mahesh earned his PhD from the University of Wyoming in 2012 with a degree in atmospheric sciences. He completed his PhD under Professor Terry Deshler with a dissertation titled “On the Accuracy of Stratospheric Aerosol Extinction and Surface Area Derived from In-Situ and Remote Measurements”. In his dissertation work, SAGE II aerosol extinction coefficient and surface area density data were used as one of the main remote measurements for validation purposes. After the completion of his PhD, Mahesh took a position as a postdoc researcher at UCR, where he worked with CMIP5 models to understand precipitation changes in the southwestern US. Prior to coming to Langley in 2017, Mahesh worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), working with a Global Climate Model (GCM) to understand the impact of aerosols on climate. While working at ORNL, Mahesh conducted and analyzed experiments with CAM4 forced with BC distributions that had been modified to match the vertical profile of smoke derived from CALIPSO satellite measurements.
Mahesh joined the SAGE III/ISS team in 2017. He worked on developing version 2.0 of Global Space-based Stratospheric Aerosol Climatology (GloSSAC). In version 2.0 of GloSSAC, SAGE III/ISS multi-wavelength aerosol extinction coefficient data has been incorporated. He is currently working on developing a cloud filter algorithm for SAGE III/ISS aerosol data.
