Michael Ferrari is the vice president and director of applied research at Weather Trends International. His primary research interests lie at the interface of climatology, environmental modeling/analysis, and the subsequent development of commercial applications that can benefit from this research. Michael is a frequent speaker at both scientific and commodity conferences around the world, where his talks focus on the confluence of weather, climate and their relationship to society, with a particular focus on weather and agricultural production and natural hazards. In addition, he builds data-driven applications for the physical commodity and risk management sectors utilizing global weather, satellite-derived, economic and sensor network data. Michael holds a PhD in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Rutgers, and a BS in Economics from West Chester.