People behind the Quest

Olga Loegel is a User Engagement and Outreach Associate at ECMWF. With over five years of experience fostering engagement between public scientific institutions and their innovation ecosystems, she leads the overall organisation of the AI Weather Quest. Her role involves ensuring effective coordination among all stakeholders and focusing on the competition’s concept, implementation and engagement.

Joshua Talib is a Scientist in the Sub-seasonal Forecasts Team at ECMWF and serves as the technical lead of the AI Weather Quest. His main responsibilities include designing the competition rules, developing the technological infrastructure, and strengthening links between insights gained through the Quest, academic research, and forecast development. His previous work has focused on surface-driven sub-seasonal predictability and improving the accessibility of sub-seasonal forecasts across Africa.

Frédéric Vitart is the Sub-seasonal Forecasts Team Lead and has over 20 years of expertise in operational probabilistic forecasting and numerical model development. He oversees the scientific content of the AI Weather Quest, ensuring the competition’s focus on improving sub-seasonal to seasonal predictions remains scientifically rigorous.

Matthew Chantry is the Machine Learning Coordinator at ECMWF, where he drives the integration of AI/ML techniques into weather and climate science. He supports creating a competition accessible and appealing to AI communities, fostering participation from diverse sectors.

Jörn Hoffmann is the Applications and Innovation Partnerships Team Lead at ECMWF and Application Partnerships Lead for the EU Destination Earth initiative. He provides organisational advice for the AI Weather Quest, ensuring alignment with ECMWF’s strategic priorities and fostering impactful partnerships.

Stephan Siemen is the Strategic Projects Coordinator at ECMWF, specialising in connecting scientific and technical advancements with strategic objectives. With a deep understanding of ECMWF’s operational landscape, Stephan advises on the AI Weather Quest’s implementation to support its seamless integration into the Centre’s strategic initiatives.

Gabriela Aznar Siguan is responsible for enabling and coordinating machine learning initiatives as Co-Lead of the Machine Learning Integration Team at MeteoSwiss. Her expertise lies in applying AI methodologies to enhance real-time forecasting systems and improve decision-making in meteorology.

Sebastian Lerch specialises in machine learning applications for meteorology, with a strong focus on probabilistic forecasting and statistical post-processing. As a Junior Research Group Leader at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), his research aims to improve prediction accuracy for both operational and scientific applications.

Andrea Manrique Sunen is a distinguished researcher in sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) forecasting and a second prize winner in the WMO AI for S2S 2021 Challenge. Currently working at EDP Renewables as a Meteorological Models and Special Tasks Associate, she applies advanced AI and forecasting techniques to support decision-making in the renewable energy sector.

Amy McGovern is a Professor at the University of Oklahoma and the Director and PI for the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography. Her work advances the development of novel trustworthy AI techniques that improve our ability to understand, predict, and communicate high-impact weather.

Kenneth Nowak, Manager of the Research and Development Office at the US Bureau of
Reclamation, and Christopher Frans, Water Availability Research coordinator at the same
organisation, bring extensive expertise in the execution of similar competitions. Reclamation’s R&D
Office has run multiple competitions aimed at forecast skill improvement: two on sub-seasonal
temperature and precipitation, one on 10-day streamflow flow, and most recently, one on water
supply.

Saeid Vaghefi is an AI and Climate Consultant for the World Meteorological Organization, where he
supports the integration of AI technologies into global meteorological practices. He specialises in
creating synergies between AI innovation and operational climate services, ensuring their effective
implementation.

David Wallerstein is a technology executive and former CXO of Tencent. He founded the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge with Wageningen University and has been a strong supporter of academic programs seeking to develop AI to address climate issues. He is author of the book “Rearchitecting Earth: AI for Food, Energy and Water (FEW)” and creator of the new documentary “Climate Extremes”.

Jonathan Weyn is an Applied Scientist at Microsoft, focusing on developing AI solutions to advance
operational weather forecasting. During his tenure as a Visiting Scientist at ECMWF, he contributed
to developing machine learning techniques for ensemble post-processing, directly improving the
accuracy of operational meteorological systems.