Articles by Saumi Shokraee, Tom Jeffery, Senior Hazard Scientist, Tom Larsen, Daniel Betten, Principal Research Scientist, Curtis McDonald and David Smith, Senior Leader, Science and Analytics Group

Professional, Research and Content Strategy at CoreLogic. Saumi joined CoreLogic at the start of 2020 and is primarily focused on researching, analyzing, and communicating trends in natural catastrophe and construction as they relate to the real estate and insurance industries. Saumi holds a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Thomas Jeffery is senior hazard scientist for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions. He is the lead scientist on development of various CoreLogic hazard risk datasets, including wildfire risk, coastal storm surge risk, earthquake risk and Florida sinkhole risk, and works with many of the top 100 U.S. insurance companies to help implement hazard risk models in automated underwriting and pricing systems. Tom is a nationally recognized leader in wildfire risk modeling and has been involved in brushfire modeling since the 1990s. He began his career as a Ph.D. graduate student at the University of Nebraska, at the Center for Advanced Land Management and Information Technology (CALMIT). Building on his early work in brushfire risk modeling, he continues to investigate and develop brushfire databases, using the most current geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing tools and data available
Tom Larsen principle of insurance solutions for CoreLogic
Tom Larsen is a principle of insurance solutions for CoreLogic, based in the U.S.. Tom joined the CoreLogic team in 2013 with the acquisition of EQECAT, Inc., a catastrophe risk management organization where he held the title of senior vice president and chief product architect. Tom has experience in natural catastrophe modeling for the insurance, reinsurance, and government industries dating back to 1989. Tom earned a Masters of Engineering in Structural Mechanics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University.
Daniel Betten is a principal research scientist for CoreLogic. In this role, Daniel is responsible for meteorological science as it relates to the CoreLogic suite of weather verification products inclusive of proprietary CoreLogic technologies for hail and wind verification. Daniel is a self-proclaimed problem solver with more than nine years of experience in the field of meteorology. Daniel was undertaking his Ph.D. while taking part in eight different scientific field projects that collected observations in tornadoes, hailstorms, and hurricanes. His research has focused on multiple radar wind synthesis, combined radar analysis with lightning data, and the development of a complex 3D trajectory calculation and visualization method. He has been published in notable industry publications including the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology and has co-authored papers published in Monthly Weather Review, Journal of Atmospheric Science among others. He began his career at Weather Fusion, later acquired by CoreLogic which has since become a key part of the Insurance & Spatial Solutions Group. While at Weather Fusion he engaged with industry leaders to provide solutions surrounding hail, wind and lightning damage related to auto hail dent repair and roof repair. Daniel earned M.S. in Meteorology, B.A. in Meteorology, and minor in math and hydrology from the University of Oklahoma. He is currently finishing his Ph.D. in Meteorology, also at the University of Oklahoma.
Curtis McDonald holds the title professional, Product Management for CoreLogic®. Mr. McDonald joined the company in April 2011 and is responsible for the Weather Verification Services product line. Prior to his product management role, Mr. McDonald also held various roles in sales. Mr. McDonald grew up near St. Louis, MO and became fascinated with weather and weather phenomena at an early age. The Great Flood of 1993 spawned his greater interest in weather, particularly with severe thunderstorms. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology.
David F. Smith is Senior Leader in the Science and Analytics group at CoreLogic. He joined CoreLogic through the acquisition of EQECAT in 2013 and is responsible for the modeling implementation of CoreLogic’s catastrophe risk models worldwide, including models for earthquake, flood, severe convective storm, storm surge, tropical cyclone, tsunami, wildfire, windstorm, and winter storm in 98 countries covering about 90% of global GDP. David has been a major contributor to the development of catastrophe risk assessment software for CoreLogic, including RQE (Risk Quantification & Engineering). His primary roles have been in the areas of weather peril model design and probabilistic simulation. He led the development of the hazard portion of CoreLogic’s US Flood model first released in 2016 and has played a leading role in the development of CoreLogic’s new U.S. Severe Convective Storm and US Wildfire models released in July 2018. David also played a significant role in the development of CoreLogic’s North Atlantic Hurricane model, and he led the development of CoreLogic’s basin-wide Asia Typhoon model, which was first released in 2010 and significantly updated in 2017. He manages CoreLogic’s annual submittal to the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, through which the firm’s model has been successfully certified since the process began in 1997. David’s prior experience includes work in financial software development and consulting. He holds an MS in Geophysics from Yale University and a BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. He is based in Oakland, California.