Visiting Appointments

Professor Keith Beven

Visiting Professor (2010-2016)

Distinguished Professor in Hydrology in the Lancaster Environment Centre. 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.

Further details: Homepage

Contact details: Email

Professor Arthur Petersen

Munich Re Visiting Professor (2009-2016) 

Until 2014 he worked as Chief Scientist at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. He is now Professor of Science, Technology and Public Policy at University College London (UCL Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy - STEaPP).

Further details: Homepage

Contact details: Email

Professor Nicholas Watkins 

Visiting Professor (2014-2017)

Complexity analyst, Visiting Professor at the Open University and CATS, and Visiting Fellow to the Centre for Fusion Space and Astrophysics at Warwick University. Nick's career has spanned a PhD in condensed matter theory; postdoctoral experience in space plasma data analysis and instrument modelling at Sussex and Warwick; and a civil service post at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Here he led a team that developed and applied complexity science across BAS's remit, from heavy tails in the Earth's fluctuating aurora to long range dependence in temperature, and complex networks in biology. The common threads through this very diverse range of topics have been fluctuations in complex systems and time series analysis.

Recent talks: Slideshare

Contact details: Email

Professor Mary Lou Zeeman

Visiting Professor (2013-2016)

Professor of Mathematics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA.

Dr Ron Bates

Senior Visiting Fellow (2015-2018)

Dr Bates was a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Statistics and CATS from 2003 to 2008, working with Professor Henry Wynn on a number of European and EPSRC funded projects.

He is currently working at Rolls Royce. His main research interests are: Robust Design; Design of Experiments; Spatial modelling (emulators, response surface methods, neural networks, etc.); Numerical Optimisation; Multiphysics modelling; Multivariate Process Control; Process Economics; Product Development Risk. He has a BSc in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in Robust design of complex systems.

Dr Joshua Elliott

Senior Visiting Fellow (2013-2016)

Research Scientist and Fellow at the Computation Institute, University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab, and member of the Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP). He received his PhD in high-energy theoretical particle physics from McGill University in 2008. His areas of interest are: climate change impacts and adaptation in agriculture and forestry; integrated assessment and economics modelling, primarily CGE and PE; land use cover and change modelling; large scale computation and ensemble simulation. 

Further details: Homepage

Contact details: Email

Dr Jochen Bröcker

Visiting Fellow (2010-2016)

Dr Bröcker is a lecturer in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Reading. He was previously a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden. He was 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Milena Cuellar

Visiting Fellow (2010-2016)

She  has a Physics degree from Universidad de Los Andes at Bogota, Colombia. She presented two dissertation projects on Fundamentals of Quantum Physics and Nonlinear Time Series Analysis. She obtained her PhD in Statistics at LSE. Her thesis, entitled: 'Perspectives and advances in parameter estimation of nonlinear models', 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) 2006/2007, working on the extraction of information from large ensembles of climate models. She was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of City University of New York (CUNY) at Bronx Community College. She co-supervised Andreas Svedin's PhD dissertation on Predictability of Solar Activity at the Department of Astronomy of Columbia University in collaboration with Edward A. Spiegel. 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. She is currently Assistant Professor at LaGuardia Community College.

Contact details: Email 

Dr Joseph Daron

Visiting Fellow (2015-2018)

Former PhD student in CATS. He completed his thesis in October 2011. Thesis title: 'Examining the decision-relevance of climate model information for the insurance industry,' sponsored by Lloyd's of London. 

He is currently a senior scientist in the Climate Information for International Development team at the Met Office Hadley Centre. He was a postdoc for three years at the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town as part of a team engaged in the development of climate services establishing relationships between scientists and decision makers across Africa.

Dr Jordan Ko

Visiting Fellow (2014-2017)

Dr Ko is currently working as an actuary in the reinsurance industry. His research interest is in time-series analysis and statistical models. He has a PhD from Université de Paris where he was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher at Laboratoire de Probabilité et Modèles Aléatoires working on the application of surrogate/meta-models and their application in extreme quantile prediction. He was previously a project manager in Uncertainty Quantification at the French nuclear conglomerate AREVA and had participated in national and international research collaboration projects with Isaac Newton Institute, CEA, EDF, EU and OECD.

Dr Kei Kobayashi

Visiting Fellow (2015-2018)

Dr Kobayashi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Analysis and Statistical Inference, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Tokyo.

Dr Reason L Machete

Visiting Fellow (2013-2016)

Dr Machete is a Senior Researcher in Climate Change at the Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation. He held a research position at the University of Reading. 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Antje Weisheimer

Visiting Fellow (2013-2016)

Dr Weisheimer was an EU-funded Marie Curie Fellow in CATS from 2002-2004 working on the project 'Uncertainty ranges for evaluation of ensemble climate forecasts'. She is a Senior Research Fellow for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and a scientist at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). 

Contact details: Email

Professor Anthony Atkinson

Visiting Professor (2004-2006)

He is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Statistics at LSE, and a member of the Statistics Department since 1989. Although his main research interests are experimental design, clinical trials and robust data analysis using the Forward Search, he has an interest in the analysis of times series using the Kalman filter.

Professor Mark Berliner

Visiting Professor (2011-2014)

Professor of Statistics at Ohio State University. He is interested in the implementation of Bayesian analysis in complex settings, with particular attention to geophysical problems.

Professor Nigel Harvey

Visiting Professor (2012-2015)

Professor of Judgment and Decision Research, UCL. 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr D James Baker

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2015)

Dr Baker 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Jerome Ellepola

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

Dr Ellepola has moved from the Position of Upstream Petroleum Economist with Shell UK E&P to join the new Shell Projects and 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Neil Gordon

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

General Manager, Science Research and Development, at Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited. 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.

Dr David Frame

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

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.

Contact details: Email

Dr James A Hansen

Senior Visiting Fellow (2010-2013)

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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Kevin Judd

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Simon Mason

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2015)

Further details: Homepage

Contact details: Email 

Dr Trevor Maynard

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

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. He completed his PhD in the Statistics department at LSE in 2016.

Contact details: Email

Dave Parker

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

Head of Forecasting, EDF Energy. 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.

Contact details: Email

Dr Mark Roulston

Senior Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

Dr Roulston is a Senior Scientist for a financial company.  He was a Probability Forecast Applications Specialist at the UK Met Office, and prior to that was a tenure track (Assistant Professor) at Pennsylvania State University. He was a co-investigator on CATS' SHELL project, and active participant on the 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 Swenja Surminski

Senior Visiting Fellow (2010-2013)

Senior Research Fellow in CCCEP/ CATS with focus on the Munich Re programme.

Further details: Homepage

Contact details: Email

Dr Mary Altalo

Visiting Fellow (2004-2006)

Programme Director of the LSE CATS and IOC/BPOS programme. She was Vice-Chair of the Board of the Intergovernmental Panel of the Global Ocean Observing System.

Dr Ed Hawkins

Visiting Fellow (2011-2014)

Principal Research Fellow in NCAS-Climate at the University of Reading, funded by a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship. He is Principal Investigator for APPOSITE Arctic predictability project, and part of the NERC RAPID-WATCH RAPIT and EQUIP teams. He is Editor of Climate Lab Book blog. His research interests focus on Decadal variability and predictability of climate, and Quantifying uncertainty in climate predictions and impacts.

Contact details: Email  

Dr Devin Kilminster

Visiting Fellow (2004-2006)

Dr Kilminster carried out joint research on CATS' NOAA and UCAR-funded projects on prediction and forecasting from 2003 to 2006.

Dr Frank Kwasniak

Visiting Fellow (2004-2006)

Dr Kwasniak was a Research Officer in CATS. Previously he held research positions at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Bremerhaven, Germany), the University of Oldenburg (Germany), the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics (Kuehlungsborn, Germany) and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (Hamburg, Germany). He joined the University of Exeter in March 2006 as a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics. He is a member of the Exeter Climate Systems Centre and the Centre for Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics.

Dr Patrick E McSharry

Visiting Fellow (2009-2012)

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

Dr Falk Niehörster

Visiting Fellow (2011-2014)

RPI (Risk Prediction Initiative) Science Program Manager at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science (BIOS). He was a Research Assistant in CATS/Grantham Research Institute from 2008 until 2011 working on the Munich Re financed project 'Quantifying the uncertain in economics impacts and increasing the economic relevance of climate modelling'.

Contact details: Email

Dr Dan Rowlands

Visiting Fellow (2012-2015)

Weather analyst at Cumulus Asset Management/CIFC, where he specialises in the interpretation of medium and extended range ensemble forecasts for energy and weather derivatives trading. He has a PhD from Oxford University, where he was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher within the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics group, working on the climateprediction.net project. During this time he was a consultant for Risk Management Solutions working on hurricane rate modelling, and with Onsemble where he developed short range forecasting techniques for wind farm power output in Texas.

Contact details: Email

Dr Roland Young

Visiting Fellow (2010-2013)

Research Officer in CATS in 2009, and has now returned to Oxford where he did his DPhil, 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.

Contact details: Email