Cong Gao is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Hurricane Hazards and Risk Analysis Group (PI: Prof. Ning Lin) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. His research focuses on the climatology, genesis, track, and intensity of tropical cyclones, with particular emphasis on how large-scale climate variability and subsurface ocean processes regulate tropical cyclone behavior and associated hazards. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2024, and holds an M.S. in Physical Oceanography from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a B.S. in Oceanography from Tongji University. His work integrates observational analysis, statistical–dynamical modeling, and coupled climate system diagnostics, and currently centers on the development of PepC-Global, a basin-tuned, environment-dependent probabilistic framework that couples stochastic genesis, track, and intensity modules to generate large synthetic cyclone catalogs and support robust estimation of regional tropical cyclone hazards and risks under present and future climate conditions.