Dr D. James Baker is a Senior Visiting Fellow. He was trained as a physicist, practiced as an oceanographer, and has held administrative positions in academia, the non-profit sector, and government. He was elected the twenty-seventh President and CEO of The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the oldest natural history institution in the western hemisphere, in April 2002. Email|
Dr. Mark Berliner is Professor of Statistics at Ohio State University and is a Visiting Professor to CATS. He is interested in the implementation of Bayesian analysis in complex settings, with particular attention to geophysical problems.
Professor Keith Beven, Professor of Hydrology and Fluid Dynamics at Lancaster Environment Centre, has recently been appointed a Visiting Professor to CATS. In his academic research he has developed ways of trying to imitate landscape dynamics by means of computer simulations but one of the fascinating aspects of this as a research area is the sheer impossibility of capturing the wonderful natural dynamics of the landscape without ambiguity by approximate mathematical means. Recent projects have been concerned with risk and uncertainty in flood inundation and flood forecasting as part of the UK Flood Risk Research Consortium; a Defra project on identifying hydrological change; looking at uncertainties in Water Quality modelling; the use of pervasive sensors in constraining model uncertainties; and concepts of environmental models of everywhere.
While in Uppsala he has been finishing a book on Uncertainty in Environmental Modelling. Email|
Dr Jochen Bröcker is a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden. He was previously a Research Officer in CATS, working on DIME and other projects. His research interest is at the interface of practical application, theoretical development and industrial exploitation of the analysis of dynamic systems. Currently he is particularly focussed on environmental risk and the socioeconomic value of weather forecast and climate model products. Furthermore, he is working on real time time series analysis (e.g. data assimilation, parameter estimation, and nonlinear filtering), as well as foundational issues in the theory of predictability and the communication. Email|
Milena Cuellar obtained a Physics degree from Universidad de Los Andes at Bogota, Colombia. Whilst there, she presented two dissertation projects on Fundamentals of Quantum Physics and Nonlinear Time Series Analysis. She obtained her PhD in Statistics at LSE, working in CATS under the supervision of Professor Leonard Smith. Her project, thesis title: "Time series analysis, model parameters estimation", was framed in the REMIND project, funded by the National Grid Transco (NGT), and managed by the Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and System Engineering. She was a Tyndall Research Fellow at Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE) on 2006/2007, working on the extraction of information from large ensembles of climate models. She now lives in New York City where she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of City University of New York (CUNY) at Bronx Community College. She is also co-supervising Andreas Svedin's PhD dissertation on Predictability of Solar Activity at the Department of Astronomy of Columbia University in collaboration with Edward A. Spiegel, the Rutherfurd Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University. Her research interests are Non-linear time series analysis, parameter estimation of deterministic models, state estimation, and forecast of real dynamical systems. Perfect and imperfect models. Probabilistic forecasts and uncertainty measures. Model error, evaluation, predictability and variability. Email|
Jerome Ellepola has moved from the Position of Upstream Petroleum Economist with Shell UK E&P to join the new Shell Projects& Technology Organisation in the Netherlands. His new role is in Network Masterplanning and Optimisation in the new Shell Projects and Technology Organisation in Holland.
As an Economist he supported operational and commercial decisions on the portfolio and major assets in the UKCS (e.g. Brent-Penguins,Nelson etc) on late life field redevelopment strategies and decommissioning. In his new role he will be part of an integrated team developing network masterplans (Crude Oil/Gas/Power/CO2 etc). He will also be part of a team designing and optimising the next generation of manufacturing plants through the application of MINLP and NLP techniques based on yields and lifecycle Economic KPIs. Email|
Dave Frame is Deputy Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment|, and Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Physics| at the University of Oxford|. He is also a Hugh Price Fellow at Jesus College, and Lead Scientist on the climateprediction.net| Transient Experiment. Email|
Dr Neil Gordon, General Manager, Science Research and Development, at Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited, is a Senior Visiting Fellow to CATS. He joined MetService in 1968, and has been a senior manager since 1988. He played a key role in its transition from a government department to a government-owned commercial company in 1992. From then until 2005, as General Manager National Weather Services, he was responsible for the delivery of public good services under a commercial contract with the New Zealand government. He currently runs the MetService Advanced Technology division which incorporates training, the Automated Meteorological Prediction Systems group, and development and support of the Weatherscape television weather graphics system. Neil has been involved in CAeM since 1983; he was vice President from 1990 to 1999, and President from 1999 to 2006. He has also been actively involved in PWS activities including expert teams and in-country training events, and co-authored a publication on performance assessment of public weather services. Email|
James A. Hansen is a Visiting Senior Fellow to CATS. He is Lead Scientist in the Probabilistic-prediction Research Office at the US Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey. He brings operational experience to CATS via his work in hurricane prediction for the US Navy and his long running association with ensemble climate modelling via climateprediction.net. He also carried out joint research on CATS' NOAA and UCAR grants, from 2003 to 2006. Email|
Professor Nigel Harvey, Professor of Judgment and Decision Research, UCL, is a Visiting Professor to CATS. His Interests are Judgmental forecasting and control of dynamical system behaviour: self-assessment of skilled performance.He has worked with CATS on joint research into the use of interpretation of probabilistic flow casts.
Email|
Dr Kevin Judd is an Associate Professor at the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Western Australia. He works in the area of dynamical systems theory, optimization and computer aided teaching.
His research is generally in the area of dynamical systems theory and optimization. For example: the reconstruction of nonlinear dynamical systems from time series, in particular the application of Minimum Description Length, and variable embedding; The theory of indistinguishable states and shadowing trajectories and its application to state estimation and ensemble forecasting, especially in very high dimensional systems like the atmosphere. He is particularly interested in understanding and quantifying uncertainty in forecasts when using imperfect models. He has past and current collaborations with a wide range of researchers including engineers, medical doctors, insurers, physicists, meteorologists and climatologists.Email|
Dr Reason L. Machete is a Visiting Fellow in CATS from the University of Reading where he holds a research position. He is an expert in the mathematical theory of non-linear dynamics and its broad application to real systems. The overarching theme of his research is the quantification of model error and its role in probabilistic forecasting. Theoretical and practical issues of predictability of real systems are primarily his concern. His key aim is to minimise uncertainty subject to some degree of calibration. Until 2009, he was a mathematics lecturer at the University of Botswana. Email|
Dr Simon Mason, Research Scientist Climate, Disasters, International Outreach at The International Research Institute for Climate and Society, The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Simon has been involved in seasonal climate forecasting research and operations since the early 1990s. He has published numerous papers on seasonal climate forecasting and verification, climate change, and southern African climate variability. He has extensive experience in the production of seasonal climate forecasts in contexts such as the Regional Climate Outlook Forums, and works closely with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)| to promote the definition and adoption of forecasting and verification standards through engagement in the relevant WMO Expert Teams and through the WMO CLIPS| Capacity Building Workshops. Mason joined the IRI in 1997, working initially at the Scripps Insitution of Oceanography|, and moving to Columbia University| in 2003. Prior to joining the IRI, Mason was Deputy Director of the Climatology Research Group at the University of the Witwatersrand|, in South Africa, where he developed empirical models for predicting southern African rainfall variability. Mason is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Centre for Analysis of Time Series| at the London School of Economics and Political Science|.
Email| Webpage|
Trevor Maynard is deputy head of exposure management at Lloyd's of London. He has authored or edited the majority of Lloyd's published reports on Climate Change.He represents Lloyd's on various climate change related initiatives including: ClimateWise, UNEPFI, Geneva Association and London Climate Change Partnership. Trevor is on the management board of the Lighthill Risk Network, a collaboration between Lloyd's and others in the insurance market which seeks to join up the business world with that of academia. He also sits on the Industry Advisory Board of the Industrial Maths Knowledge Transfer Network. Until 2010 he sat on the Maths Strategic Advisory Team for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Trevor has previously worked for: Royal and Sun Alliance, Friends Provident and Mercer. He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and has bachelor and master of science degrees in pure mathematics from the University of Warwick. In his spare time, he is currently studying at the LSE for a PhD in the Statistics department. Email|
Dr Patrick E. McSharry is head of the Smith School's Catastrophe Risk Financing Centre at the University of Oxford, a Royal Academy of Engineering/EPSRC Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, a Research Associate at St Catherine's College, Oxford and a Senior Member of the IEEE. His research interests include biomedical engineering, complex dynamical systems, signal processing, systems biology, risk management, operations research, and forecasting. Contact details: Email|
Dave Parker, Head of Forecasting, EDF Energy, is a Visiting Senior Fellow. His career has been devoted to improving the accuracy and relevance of energy demand forecasting. He worked for the Electricity Council and then SEEBOARD prior to taking up his current post at EDF in 2003. His achievements in this and subsequent roles at have included: Ensuring probabilistic weather forecasts are used in the demand forecasting process; In conjunction with the Hadley Centre, he developed a revised methodology for determining a realistic view of seasonal normal weather in a world of climate change; Representation on the project board of two major energy industry projects to understand the impacts of climate change on the energy industry. Email|
Professor Arthur Petersen is Munich Re Programme| Visiting Professor at LSE, Chief Scientist at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Professor of Science and Environmental Public Policy at the VU University Amsterdam. He received graduate training as theoretical physicist (MSc), atmospheric scientist (PhD) and philosopher of science (MA and PhD). Since 2001, he has gained considerable experience in shaping the science-policy interface at Dutch, European and global levels on issues of climate change and sustainable development. He has become a world-leading expert on assessing and communicating uncertainties. In particular, he has studied major uncertainties in climate simulation.
Contact details: Email| Homepage|
Dr Mark Roulston was recently a Probability Forecast Applications Specialist at the UK Met Office, and prior to that was a tenure track (Assistant Professor) at Pennsylvannia State University. He was a co-investigator on CATS' SHELL project, and active participant on ENSEMBLES project. He is a co-author on a number of joint papers and also a co-presenter of our US Operational Weather Risk meeting. His research interests are: Promoting new applications for weather and climate forecasts and the integration of probabilistic forecasts into decision support.
Contact details: Email|
Dr Antje Weisheimer was an EU-funded Marie Curie Fellow at CATS from 2002-2004 working on the project "Uncertainty ranges for evaluation of ensemble climate forecasts". She currently works at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)|. As a Visiting Research Fellow she continues to work closely with CATS. Email|
Roland Young, who was a Research Officer at CATS in 2009, has now returned to Oxford where he did his D.Phil., working as a postdoc in Peter Read's group. He has moved from studying the rotating annulus to studying the dynamics of giant planet atmospheres (specifically Jupiter and Saturn) using general circulation models. Email|