Our Alumni

© Rafael Rosolem 2021

The WISE CDT’s year one postgraduate school concluded its programme in summer 2019 on progression of the final intake (Cohort 5). All WISE entrants were co-located at the University of Exeter for their first year, which has been fundamental to establishing a WISE cohort experience. Commencing with a week-long induction programme, co-location in dedicated offices allowed students to get to know each other, the CDT’s academics and the CDT administrator, building relationships and developing a strong, supportive cohort to sustain them for the remainder of the programme.

The Postgraduate School in Water Informatics ensured that students gained a solid understanding of water informatics and wider research methodology before they began their PhD research project. This was particularly important given WISE students’ varied academic backgrounds and experience. In designing the CDT programme, a key aim was to develop students’ skills and understanding in addition to furthering their knowledge, including an appreciation of both present and future needs of the water industry. The Postgraduate School in Water informatics programme accounted for 120 credits of taught Master’s level modules (National Qualification Framework level 7). The 8 modules were:

■ ECMM124: Hydroinformatics Tools ■ ECMM132: Urban Drainage and Waste Water Management ■ ECMM133: Water Supply and Distribution Management ■ ECMM144: Environmental and Computational Hydraulics ■ ECMM145: Computational Hydrology ■ ECMM146: Mathematical Modelling of Wastewater

Treatment Processes ■ ECMM171: Programming for Engineering ■ ECMM410: Research Methodology

Three modules were created specifically for the WISE CDT and were only available to WISE students (ECMM144, ECMM145 and ECMM146, delivered by academics from Cardiff, Bristol and Bath, respectively). All other modules were shared with students following the University of Exeter’s MSc in Water Engineering and other MSc/ MEng programmes within the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences.

New entrants to the WISE CDT developed their PhD project proposal during their first year. Students then presented their proposals to the CDT management group and Advisory Board members at Summer School following the completion of postgraduate school.

Beyond their first year, WISE CDT students have had the opportunity to pursue further specialist skills training by attending taught Master’s-level modules, either at their registered university or at another WISE partner university.

Beyond their first year, WISE CDT students have had the I think WISE has given me one of the best possible opportunity to pursue further specialist skills training by attending PhD experiences that I could have gotten. taught Master’s-level modules, either at their registered university or Cohort 1 graduate at another WISE partner university.

Transferable skills training has been an essential component of the CDT programme. Key generic skills such as communication, commercial awareness, negotiation, problem solving and teamwork are invaluable for students’ development and future careers, whether in industry or academia. In each year of the programme students completed a Transferable Skills and Engineering Leadership module delivered by one of the partner universities. Modules were designed to be distinct, build on earlier learning and align to students’ PhD progression. In addition to supporting the development of essential transferable skills, this training programme aimed to prepare students for PhD submission, proposal writing and their future career.

Focus of module: acquisition of a deeper understanding of the research process and methodology. The module covers communication, including supervisory relationships, science communication and public engagement, and overseas collaboration. It also focuses on patenting and intellectual property, negotiating and influencing skills, and developing a business model. Exeter’s Year 1 module was conducted jointly with students from the Stream Industrial Doctorate Centre to broaden the mix of participants’ backgrounds and experiences. The final Exeter Year 1 module was delivered in 2018-19 for Cohort 5 students.

Focus of module: maintaining motivation and independence; visualising data; preparation and delivery of conference papers and posters; writing and refereeing of journal articles and grant applications.

The final Bristol module was delivered to Cohort 5 students over an extended period due to Coronavirus restrictions. While a successful online part-module went ahead in 2019-20, it was decided to wait until VOX Coaching could deliver the presentation skills session in person, given the very positive feedback from previous cohorts. This final session was able to go ahead in September 2021 during Summer School week and was well received.

Focus of module: developing resilience; reducing stress; excelling as a researcher; leadership, management and team skills; professional etiquette; planning and writing a thesis; thinking of one’s career; entrepreneurship and leadership skills.

The final Cardiff module was delivered online in June 2021 to both Cohort 4 (module postponed in 2019-20 because of Coronavirus restrictions) and Cohort 5. The 2021 module included a new session on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity delivered by the Centre for Inclusive Leadership.

Thank you all for allowing me this experience and supporting me along the way, it’s been brilliant!!

Cohort 2 graduate

Focus of module: strategies for PhD viva preparation, thesis completion, smart and effective proposal writing, Early Career Researcher funding opportunities, career opportunities, and life after a PhD.

With the imposition of Coronavirus restrictions in early 2020 Bath designed an online module, successfully delivering this for the second time in 2021, with positive student feedback. The final module was able to go ahead on the University of Bath campus in March 2022, with participants greatly appreciating the opportunity to get together to work and socialise. Group accommodation ensured that the module reinforced cohort engagement.

I know there has been outstanding research performed during the program and I truly hope it continues in the future.

Cohort 3 graduate

WISE CDT students have been part of an active research community and have had the opportunity to participate in regular research seminars and events at their home and partner universities:

■ Bath’s Water Innovation & Research Centre (‘WIRC’) ■ Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment’s Water Theme ■ Cardiff’s Hydro-environmental Research Centre (‘HRC’) ■ Exeter’s Centre for Water Systems (‘CWS’)

Throughout the four years, the CDT programme has incorporated a mix of cohort and multi-cohort events to encourage students from all universities to mix, supporting discussion and exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries.

It was a great pleasure to be part of such a well organised PhD program.

Cohort 4 graduate

The WISE CDT annual Summer Schools have been organised by the partner universities in turn. Summer Schools have included student research presentations and poster displays, a waterthemed ‘challenge’, site visits, and talks from leading academic and industrial partners. Summer School week also hosted the annual CDT Advisory Board meeting and the Board of Examiners’ meeting, which reviewed postgraduate school marks and annual progression for all students.

Coronavirus restrictions meant the postponement of the 2020 Summer School. The final event therefore took place in September 2021 and was organised by the University of Bristol. This was the first in-person WISE event since the onset of the pandemic and was designed with this in mind. Participants expressed their appreciation for the relaxed atmosphere and looser scheduling, which enabled everyone to get used to being in a large group again and to reconnect. Students also greatly valued the WISE alumni panel session. Huge thanks go to Dr Barnaby Dobson, Dr Olivia Bailey, Dr Olivia Milton-Thompson and Dr James Webber for sharing their experiences and answering the many questions from current students.

In 2021 WISE published a paper about the CDT in the international open-access journal ‘Hydrology and Earth System Sciences’. Authored by then Co-Director Professor Thorsten Wagener with CDT management group members, ‘Hydroinformatics Education - the Water Informatics in Science and Engineering (WISE) Centre for Doctoral Training’ discusses the need for this type of postgraduate training, the CDT’s structure and approach, and the results and lessons learned so far. Read more here: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2721-2021.

Integral, ongoing engagement with industry is essential to the WISE CDT. The overall aim of WISE is to fill the skills gap by offering a postgraduate programme that fosters new levels of innovation and collaboration.

In establishing a vibrant research and learning community, the CDT provides training at the boundary of water informatics, science and engineering. Central to both the training programme and to students’ research projects is the involvement of leading industry, business, government and other stakeholders. WISE CDT graduates may choose careers in academic, industry, regulatory, practitioner or research institutions. Exposure to real industry challenges and projects - and the networking and career development opportunities that arise from engagement with industry - are therefore highly valuable and necessary components of the programme. Industry engagement for all students includes:

■ a series of seminars and invited lectures from industry and water stakeholders during the first year postgraduate school; ■ regular Industry Days, where students present their research to water industry and practitioner stakeholders via poster and networking sessions; ■ engagement with Advisory Board members at Summer Schools, including presentations of PhD research project proposals and poster sessions displaying current research and preliminary results; ■ engagement with key professional organisations such as CIWEM, the Institute of Water (‘IoW’), British Hydrological Society (‘BHS’), UK Water Industry Research (‘UKWIR’), International

Association for HydroEnvironment Engineering and Research (‘IAHR’), and the International Water Association (‘IWA’).

Several WISE CDT PhD projects have been co-developed in association with industry or practitioner partners. This ensures a route to impact and some real-world relevance to the project when it is delivered. As a result of occasions such as our Industry Days we have seen a growth in collaborative project development and - increasingly - internships and co-funding of projects. WISE has secured a number of industry co-funded studentships, including with Bristol Water, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, South West Water, United Utilities, UKWIR and Wessex Water. Collaborative projects may involve an industrial partner joining the supervisory team. Inkind contributions include collaborator staff time and advice, invited seminars, site visits, access to stakeholder data, opportunities for incompany or on-site trials, and access to facilities and infrastructure. Examples of collaborative projects are outlined below.

Cohort 3 graduate Dr Sabrina Draude successfully defended her PhD thesis on ‘Optimised Maintenance Scheduling for Wastewater Systems’ in February 2022. Sabrina’s PhD project was developed with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and her supervisory team included the company’s Rebecca Hiscock. Sabrina benefited from working closely with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, where she was able to test and verify her model, even during the challenging circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic. The PhD collaboration also resulted in co-authored publications. On completing her doctorate Sabrina obtained a post at Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, where she works as a Water Data Scientist.

Oliver Foss (Bath, Cohort 5) is researching ‘Dynamic Revetments and Composite Beaches - Coastal Protection Inspired by Nature’. While Ollie’s PhD project is not a formal collaboration with the Deltares research institute, deepening links have been fostered with the development of his project - and with its modification due to the Coronavirus pandemic. As we go to press, Ollie is finishing a brief research visit to Deltares in the Netherlands, where he has been working with Dr Robert McCall on a thesis chapter focused on the application of the XBeach model to dynamic revetments. Dr McCall is an expert on coastal hazards and nearshore hydromorphodynamics. He has previously consulted on Ollie’s research and the aim of the research visit is to expedite work on this thesis chapter.

Bristol Cohort 5 student Georgios Sarailidis’ PhD research is on ‘Understanding and Estimating Uncertainty in Global Flood Risk Models’ and is a collaboration with JBA Consulting. Professor Rob Lamb, WISE CDT Advisory Board member and Managing Director of the JBA Trust, is George’s industry supervisor. George’s project uses the JBA Risk Management flood catastrophe model, which is capable of simulating risk at large scale. George has benefited from regular in-person and virtual meetings with JBA colleagues, which have included presentations and discussion on preliminary results, and have helped him determine a new experimental set-up for his uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. George presented his latest research to the 2022 EGU General Assembly.

Exeter Cohort 5 student Daisy Harley-Nyang’s PhD project is a collaboration with UKWIR. Daisy is researching ‘Microplastics in Wastewater Treatment Works’ and her supervisory team includes UKWIR project manager Nina Jones. Daisy’s project was heavily impacted during the pandemic, when access to both fieldwork sites and university facilities was restricted. However, the past year has seen Daisy resume her fieldwork and analysis, publish her first paper and present at her first international conference. Facilitated by UKWIR, a research visit to a commercial laboratory is planned to support Daisy in optimising her final-stage analytical work.

The universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter have strong links with the international academic community, as well as with consulting engineering and IT companies, water companies, government departments, and agencies involved in managing and improving the water environment.

All WISE CDT students are strongly encouraged to undertake a research visit of up to three months as they develop their PhD project. Research visits are funded by the CDT, some with supplementary support from the host organisation or the British Council, and are made to either a UK-based industrial/government agency partner or an overseas academic institution. During their visit students work on their research under the guidance of their primary PhD supervisor, the supervisor at the host institution and experts in their research area. On their return, students write a report evidencing the impact and outcomes of their visit.

Research visits have enabled students to profit from research facilities or resources not available locally, to obtain new insights through working with a different research group and to create new networks. Personal benefits include experiencing life and work in a different culture, confidence-building and making new friends. WISE students’ programme evaluation forms consistently rate the research visit as one of the top three best parts of the CDT (along with the cohort experience and the opportunity to present work and engage with UK and international researchers).

The requirement for returning students to produce a formal research visit report was introduced in late 2018. All completed reports affirm that students consider their visit beneficial to both their research and to them personally, with the majority of visits also generating new links or furthering collaboration between the student’s home university and the host institution. The encouragement to take a research visit has been really valuable, to work with new people and extend the impact of my research has been such a gift. Again something that is not common in a PhD but makes the WISE CDT into a really wellrounded, multi-faceted experience.

Cohort 2 student

Three WISE CDT students were overseas on visits in early 2020 as the Coronavirus pandemic took hold. With travel restrictions being imposed, the students had to return home early. During the pandemic international travel was limited and some students were unable to undertake their planned research visit before their studentship ended. Throughout the pandemic WISE encouraged students to explore possibilities for local or virtual collaborations where international travel could not be pursued (although it was acknowledged that such alternatives could not replicate the ‘real’ experience for them).

Happily, since late 2021 our students have been able to benefit from research visits once more, albeit through shortened trips in some cases. WISE is grateful to our partners for hosting these research visits, as the benefits to students - both professionally and personally - are immense. To date, WISE CDT students have been hosted by the following institutions and supervisors:

7 Lakes Alliance and Colby College, Maine, USA Centre of Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK Columbia University, New York, USA Cornell University, Ithaca, USA Dr Danielle Wain Dr Cecilia Svensson Prof Pierre Gentine Prof Patrick Reed

Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Prof Jan Peter van der Hoek

Deltares / Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Dr Robert McCall (two visits) European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UK Dr Jean Bidlot Government of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia / The Pacific Community, Suva, Fiji Steve Barnett / Dr Carlos Ordens Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia Prof Rodger Tomlinson Großer Wellenkanal - Ludwig-Franzius-Institut, Leibnitz Universität Hanover / Technical Dr Stefan Schimmels Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA Prof Petros Koumoutsakos Hohai University, Nanjing, China Prof Yongping Chen Hohai University, Nanjing, China Prof Pei Xin International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria Dr Yoshihide Wada KWR Water Research Institute, Utrecht, Netherlands Dr Mirjam Blokker Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Prof Yasuto Tachikawa Laval University, Quebec, Canada Prof Sebastien Houde Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany Dr Stefan Schimmels Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Luxembourg Dr Stan Schymanski Nanjing Normal University/Hohai University, Nanjing, China Dr Qiang Dai / Dr Jing Huang National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, India Dr Shanta Dutta National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe Dr Eugine Makaya National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Prof Vladan Babovic San Diego State University, USA Prof Hilary McMillan Singapore Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Singapore Dr Jamie Hinks Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa Dr Wesaal Khan Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark Dr Ole Mark Texas A&M University, College Station, USA Prof Scott Socolofsky The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Dr Heide Friedrich Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Prof Binliang Lin (two visits) University College London, UK Dr Eugeny Buldakov University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain Prof José Anta Álvarez University of Arizona, Tucson, USA Prof Tom Meixner University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Prof Alberto Montanari University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Dr Aaron Cahill University of California, Irvine, USA Prof Brett Sanders (two visits) University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Prof Roger Nokes University of Iowa, Iowa, USA Prof Gabriele Villarini University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Prof Tim Fletcher University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Dr Murray Peel University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Prof Ian Turner University of Saskatchewan, Canmore, Canada Prof Martyn Clark University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Prof Bryan Tolson University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Prof Jan Seibert Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington, USA Dr George Kaminsky WaterHarvest, India Om Prakash Sharma Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Prof Junqiang Xia Research visits completed over the past year are outlined below.

Cardiff Cohort 4 student Nefeli Makrygianni based herself at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (‘ECMWF’) in Reading, UK for her research visit. Nefeli’s industrial supervisor is Dr Jean Bidlot, Senior Scientist in ECMWF’s Earth System Modelling Section. Nefeli therefore took the opportunity to work closely with Dr Bidlot at ECMWF between October-December 2021, following a period of what she considered was slow progress with her PhD during the Coronavirus pandemic.

During her time at ECMWF Nefeli benefited from access to additional satellite data to validate her model results and refine her project analysis, which she incorporated into her thesis. Nefeli also started working on a journal paper.

Nefeli feels that being at ECMWF gave her valuable insight into the operation of a major research centre and enabled her to network and make new connections. The interactions during her research visit were also important personally, as they followed a period of social isolation due to the pandemic. In addition to the planned joint paper, it is envisaged that future collaborations between Cardiff University and ECMWF may follow due to the new contacts made.

Stephanie Müller (Cardiff, Cohort 4) travelled to the USA in OctoberDecember 2021 and was hosted by Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she joined Professor Petros Koumoutsakos’ research group in the Institute for Applied Computational Science. Stephanie’s aim was to undertake computational research in order to ascertain whether artificial intelligence techniques can be used to predict the hydrodynamic conditions determining a fish swimming position in the vicinity of a hydrokinetic turbine.

Stephanie benefited greatly from her time at Harvard and access to its facilities, learning new numerical approaches and developing a better understanding of turbulent wake structures downstream of a vertical axis turbine under confined flow conditions. She became an active member of Professor Koumoutsakos’ group, joining the laboratory’s journal club, taking part in weekly meetings, presenting her work and networking with other researchers.

On a personal level Stephanie relished the chance to experience student life at a world-leading American university. She also took the opportunity to immerse herself in local culture by visiting Boston and New York and through exploring the local area in her free time.

Stephanie considers that both Harvard and Cardiff universities gained benefits from her research visit, as experimental data was shared for validation purposes and to enhance computational approaches. The visit enhanced existing collaboration between the two institutions and will be continued: future joint journal or conference papers are envisaged.