Owain Harris (he/him)

I am a third-year PhD student in my third year of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence. Originally from an astrophysics background, my postgraduate research interests include the application of machine learning in atmospheric physics with a focus on extreme weather systems and their evolution in a changing climate. As part of my programme, I have undertaken a year of training in a variety of data science and machine learning methods, and I have also engaged with critical data ethics and governance where big data and AI are concerned with solutions to environmental issues.

I am researching high impact weather in the mid-latitude regions. Specifically, I am developing multiple logistic regression and convolutional neural network models to identify and predict dry intrusions that are linked to extratropical cyclones and associated with extreme surface weather. The project aim is to further our understanding of how these descending airstreams and their impacts are likely to change in the future by studying their representation in climate projection models. Contextually underpinning this work, I will be considering the larger role of emerging machine learning technologies in weather and climate science, and how these new forms of knowledge production will interact with existing mechanisms of decision-making related to climate change. My supervisors are Prof. Jennifer Catto and Dr Stefan Siegert from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Dr Eleanor Hadley Kershaw from the University of Exeter Business School.