Research group

Digital Oceans

Blue digital dots forming a horizontal wave KanawatVector© stock.adobe.com

A collaborative platform for exploring advancements and exchanging expertise in digital technology within the marine and maritime space. We foster innovation and research.

About

Research areas

Marine solutions and economies are expanding along with increasing threats to the marine environment. Harnessing progress in digital oceans is essential for addressing global and local challenges.

Digital Oceans focuses on advances in marine digital technology, in areas such as:

  • artificial intelligence
  • data infrastructure and management
  • ocean mapping
  • simulation
  • visualisation such as digital twins

Digital Oceans is a special interest group that aims to establish a collaborative platform for researchers to engage in marine digital applications and methods. Their interest is in a deeper understating of our oceans and in data-driven insights that can inform sustainable practices. They use digital innovation to address practices and changes affecting our marine environments. 

Digital Oceans facilitates efficiency and accessibility. This is achieved through advances in artificial intelligence that improve data analysis and decision-making processes; the optimisation of data structures and management; and new frontiers in ocean mapping, simulation and visualisations.

Our ambition is to:

  • promote and champion Digital Oceans
  • increase awareness to marine digital technologies 
  • foster collaborations and the exchange of ideas 

The Digital Oceans group strives to bridge the gap between cutting-edge marine digital technologies and social and human sciences. 

Our vision is to promote environmental stewardship and help innovations to impact our oceans and the global community.  

To find out more about the Digital Oceans Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champions Alexandra Karamitrou, Crystal El Safadi, Philip Leadbitter and Hugo Putuhena.

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group and our other special interest groups.

People, projects and publications

People

Professor Ian Williams

Professor in Applied Environmental Scien

Research interests

  • Waste and Resource Management
  • Carbon management
  • Air Pollution

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Ibrahim Sari

Associate Director of Business Dev in ES

Research interests

  • Semiconductors
  • System Integration
  • Advanced Packaging
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Miss Irene Ruiz Espejo

Research interests

  • AI for Biodiversity
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Dr Isha Gupta

Lecturer

Research interests

  • Advanced materials for extreme aerospace environments
  • High-temperature oxidation of refractory metals and alloys
  • Thermal and environmental barrier coatings

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Isha

Professor Ivan Haigh

Professor

Research interests

  • I currently have 8 active research grants (4 as principle investigator (PI)) worth £4.8M. 
  • I am the PI on two international grants that started in 2019, both looking at compound flooding. Compound flooding (when the combination, or successive occurrence of, two or more hazard events leads to an extreme impact e.g., coastal and fluvial flooding), can greatly exacerbate the adverse consequences associated with flooding in coastal regions and yet it remains under-appreciated and poorly understood. In the £788k NERC- and NSF- (US National Science Foundation) funded CHANCE project, I am leading a team (working alongside researchers from the University of Central Florida), to deliver a new integrated approach to make a step-change in our understanding, and prediction of, the source mechanisms driving compound flood events in coastal areas around the North Atlantic basin. In the £575k NERC- and NAFOSTED- (Vietnam’s National Foundation for Science and Technology Development) funded project, I am leading a team that is working with colleagues in Vietnam to map and characterise present, and predict future, flood risk from coastal, fluvial, and surface sources and, uniquely, to assess the risk of compound flooding across the Mekong delta; one of the three most vulnerable deltas in the world. I am also the PI on a grant, which started in 2021. In this 41k project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), we are assessing past and future closures of the six storm surge barriers in the Netherlands.
  • In 2021, I was awarded a 3-year (50% of my time) prestigious Knowledge Exchange Fellowship funded by NERC (UK’s Natural Environmental Research Council) and worth £154k. This fellowship builds strongly on my prior research and the overall goal is to provide guidance and tools that will help storm surge barrier operators better prepare for the impacts of climate change across every area of their operation now and into the future. Within the fellowship I am working primary with the UK Environment Agency (EA) and the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat). However, to ensure the work undertaken can benefit all the existing (and planned) surge barriers around the world, I am also working closely with I-STORM. I-STORM is an international knowledge sharing network for professionals relating to the management, operation and maintenance of storm surge barriers, and has representation from all the surge barriers worldwide.

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor J. Andy Milton

Prof Fellow in Analytical Geochemistry
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Ms Jacqueline Nightingale LLB, BSc

Research interests

  • Ocean governance
  • Climate science
  • Social justice
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Professor Jadu Dash

Professor of Remote Sensing

Research interests

  • Satellite derived land surface phenology and its validation with ground data
  • Developing a chlorophyll content based production efficiency model to quantify terrestrial carbon uptake
  • Impact of extreme climatic events on vegetation phenology
Connect with Jadu

Dr James Blake

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • James is interested in the fundamental way that fluid and structures interact and the practical consequences on the design and operation of marine vehicles:
  • Sustainable structural materials for composite boat design and production;
  • Experimental & theoretical analysis of composite material performance;
Connect with James

Professor James Jordan

Professor

Research interests

  • The British Broadcasting Corporation
  • Holocaust studies
  • Post-war media in Britain

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with James

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Connect with us

Enquiries

If you're interested in joining us or collaborating, get in touch with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.