Prof Sarah Dance and Dr Amos Lawless, University of Reading,  have recently been appointed to leading data assimilation roles at NCEO.  As part of NCEO’s executive team, Sarah and Amos will share responsibility for the development and delivery of the data assimilation scientific strategy within NCEO. Data assimilation, which plays a fundamental role at NCEO, is the science of combining observational information with computational models to build up a picture of the Earth system.

Sarah will take on the role of Director of the NCEO Data Assimilation division and serve on the NCEO management board. Amos will be Head of Data Assimilation Methodology and the NCEO Training Lead. Together they will also serve as co-directors of the University of Reading’s Data Assimilation Research Centre (DARC), a leading centre in the theory and application of data assimilation in environmental science.

Prof Sarah Dance said: “Data assimilation is the key to maximizing the value of observations for environmental forecasting and for the re-analyses that are so widely used to understand more about the Earth. I am excited to be taking on the role of Director of the NCEO Data Assimilation Division and look forward to working with NCEO staff and students to co-create the next generation of data assimilation techniques, using state-of-the-art computational models and novel types of Earth observation data.”

Dr Amos Lawless said: “This is an exciting time for new data assimilation methodologies, which will allow us to extract even more information from observations of the Earth system. I look forward to enabling the development of these techniques for Earth observation to support science throughout NCEO. Within my role as Training Lead, I am delighted to be able to guide the development of a comprehensive training portfolio in NCEO. Training is a fundamental part of our Centre, both to support the development of our own staff and students, and to bring NCEO research and expertise into the wider community.”