Dr Ioana Colfescu

Principal Research Fellow in Climate and Machine Learning

Researcher profile

Email
ic98@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

Areas of expertise: ML for climate prediction, Large scale (ENSO, AMO) Climate Dynamics and Variability, North Atlantic (Multidecadal) Variability, Extreme Events, Mountain Meteorology, Exploratory Data Analysis.

In my joint position at National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the University of St Andrews, I lead the new (as of June 2024) "Theory, Observation and Modelling of the Atmosphere and Climate" research group. In NCAS I am currently the the Digital Atmosphere Programme Leader and in that role I contribute to shaping the new NCAS strategy on digital technology.

Previously to joining St Andrews I worked for the University of Leeds, the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. My background is in mathematics after which I pursued a Climate Dynamics Ph.D. (George Mason University in the US). I have extensive international experience and throughout my career, I worked for and, collaborated with various organizations such as the University of Leeds, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, University of Trento (Italy), the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (USA), George Mason University (USA), the University of Barcelona (Spain) or the National Meteorological Administration (Romania).

Some of my previous research experience covers working on topics such as, ML for ENSO prediction, understanding the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), understanding the role of anthropogenic aerosols, extreme events attribution and detection, mountain waves modeling, modeling air pollution and pollutants as well as a few other smaller projects for the industry.
While the core of my work entails research I also love being part of field campaigns (I’ve been in the Arctic Ocean, Iceland, Italy, UK and I am a Certified Mission Scientist for Airborne Research facilities) and I occasionally worked in NCAS on industry-related projects, as well as the development of training resources. On the teaching side, I have previously led and taught specialised Atmospheric Science related course and I also very much enjoy mentoring and supervising post-graduate students. I see working with post-graduate colleagues as an excellent opportunity for a two ways learning process.
 
I very much enjoy teamwork and diversity while the fact that I’ve been moving a lot around made it difficult to build a single stream of research, until St Andrews, I have learned to make the best out of meeting new people and both regarding colleagues as well as students.
In my free time, I love camping, spending time with my dog Pip, and taking photos ( https://gurushots.com/Colfi/photos).