Rate My Professor Annalisa Bracco

Annalisa Bracco is a Professor in Ocean and Climate Dynamics in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, serving as Associate Chair for Research since 2022. In this Geoscience role, she has held faculty positions at Georgia Tech since 2007, advancing from Assistant and Associate Professor (2007-2014) to full Professor (2014-present). Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Bracco was Assistant Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2005-2006), Junior UNESCO Tenure Track Scientist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy (2002-2005), and Postdoctoral Scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2000-2002). She earned her Ph.D. in Geophysics and Oceanography from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 2000, and a B.A. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Torino, Italy, in 1995.

Bracco's research specializations encompass ocean mesoscale dynamics, including coherent structures and their roles in transport and mixing properties of passive and active tracers such as plankton; vertical mixing at mesoscales; and climate variability, particularly the ocean's contributions at interannual and decadal scales. Her work explores climate modes of variability, multiscale dynamics of geophysical flows, and interactions with biological and chemical tracers, employing climate and ocean models alongside data science tools. She has received major awards including the 2011 American Meteorological Society Nicholas Fofonoff Award for contributions to understanding mesoscale ocean dynamics, geostrophic turbulence, tropical dynamics, and their coupling with marine ecosystems; the 2006 Mary Sears Award from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; the 2001 NSF Student and Young Scientist Award Grant; the 2000 Postdoctoral Scholar Award from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and the 1997 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer School Fellowship Award from Woods Hole. Key publications include "Machine Learning and the Physics of Climate" in Nature Reviews Physics (2024), "Microplastic pollution in the Gulf of Mexico" in npj Emerging Contaminants (2025), "Machine Learning prediction of connectivity, biodiversity and resilience in the Coral Triangle" in Communications Biology (2022), "Review: Oceanic mesoscale processes in the North Pacific: physical and biogeochemical impacts" in Progress in Oceanography (2022), and "Exploring the topology of the tropical Pacific manifold" in Physical Review X (2022).