Alison Fowler (NCEO Research Fellow)

Hello!

I am a post-doctoral researcher based in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; a member of the data assimilation research centre, and a member of the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) data assimilation theme.

These web pages detail my current research.

• Find out more about my research and publications
• Some usefull notes and a computer practical on the Kalman filter.

Last updated: 18 June 2024

Research Interests

I am interested in all areas of data assimilation in application to the environmental sciences, some particular areas of interest are:

Measures of observation impact and the optimal design of observing networks. See Skakala et al. 2024; Fowler et al. 2020; Fowler, 2019, 2017; Fowler and van Leeuwen, 2013, 2012.

Observation and model bias correction. See Fowler, 2024; Francis et al. 2023; Fowler et al. 2022.

Correlated observation errors. See Fowler et al. 2018.

Data assimilation applied to convective weather systems.

Data assimilation applied to marine ecology. See Skakala et al. 2024; Fowler et al. 2022

Activity in the Research Community

• Associate editor of Monthly Weather Review 2018-2019.
• Chair of the RMetSoc workshop on ‘Improving the treatment of observation uncertainty’, 2017.
• Scientific committee member and chair of the organising committee for 2016 International Symposium on Data Assimilation, Reading, UK.
• Associate fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.
• Reviewer of many articles for publication in e.g. Tellus, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Monthly Weather Review, SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification, SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, MDPI Atmosphere, Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. I have also reviewed proposals for the National Science Foundation and a book proposal for Elsevier.

Awards and Funding

• One of two representing the National Centre for Earth Observation on the NERC Growing Future Leaders Scheme 2015/2016. A two year training programme aimed at people who have shown the potential to progress into leadership roles.
• Awarded sponsorship as part of the British Council International Networking for Young Scientists Programme to attend the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR) workshop on Ensemble prediction and Data assimilation in Melbourne, Australia, February 2009.
• Awarded a Royal Meteorological Society travel grant to attend the 5th WMO Symposium on Data Assimilation held in Melbourne, Australia, October 2009.
• Awarded student poster prize at the AMS 17th Symposium on ‘Boundary layers and turbulence’ held in San Diego, California, 2006.

Supervision

• Kate Huxtable, PhD student 2024-present. Thesis: 'The use of explainable AI to improve conctive scale forecasting'. Jointly supervised with Marek Wlasak (Met Office), Ross Bannister and Todd Jones
• Miranti Hastuti, PhD student 2024-present. Thesis: 'The ensemble-based Assimilation of Satellite All-Sky Radiances for Convective-Permitting NWP in Indonesia'. Jointly supervised with Sarah Dance (lead), Bob Plant and Ross Bannister.
• Devon Francis, PhD Student 2019-2023. Thesis: 'Bias correction of satellite data'. Jointly supervised with Amos Lawless, John Eyre (Met Office) and Stefano Migliorini (Met Office)
• Xinyue Yao, MSc Student 2020. Thesis: 'The value of observations for forecasting convective rainfall'. Jointly supervised with Bob Plant.
• Kat Howes, PhD Student 2014-2016. Thesis: Accounting for Model Error in Four-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation. Jointly supervised by Amos lawless (lead).