Dr. Surgi received a Ph.D. in Meteorology from Florida State University in 1987 under Professor T. N. Krishnamurti. In 1988, she accepted a faculty position at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science/University of Miami where her research was on modeling the tropical atmosphere and tropical cyclones. In 1993, after Hurricane Andrew, Dr. Surgi became interested in improving operational hurricane forecast models and went to work at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami. She is now at NOAA's Environmental Modeling Center of the National Weather Service where she is leading the effort in NOAA and the greater tropical community to develop the next generation hurricane modeling system. The Hurricane Weather Research Forecast (HWRF) system will advance numerical hurricane track forecasts. She is also the Mission Manager for the National Weather Service in upgrading NOAA's GIV high altitude hurricane aircraft to perform reconnaissance missions in hurricanes.

Dr. Surgi has published numerous scientific papers; has taught meteorology for over 15 years to various educational levels and currently serves on the editorial board of the international journal of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics.