Dr Ioana Colfescu
Principal Research Fellow in Climate and Machine Learning
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).
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.