Innovation Incoming: Weather warnings from AI - a MacRobert Award special

Tomasz Schafernaker

Tomasz Schafernaker is a BBC broadcaster and meteorologist, as well as a self-taught artist. Born in Poland in 1979, and raised in both London and Gdańsk, Tomasz developed a fascination with natural phenomena, which led him to pursue a BSc in Meteorology from the University of Reading. He trained at the Met Office College and RAF before becoming the youngest male weather presenter on the BBC. His career in broadcasting and forecasting spans over two decades, during which he was voted ‘Favourite Weather Presenter’ by Radio Times readers. Beyond meteorology, Tomasz is an accomplished artist, winning Sky Arts’ Celebrity Landscape Artist of the Year in 2021.

Peter Battaglia

Peter Battaglia is a Director of Research at Google DeepMind. He leads the Sustainability Program, as well as the Weather research group. His team's recent work on AI-based weather models has contributed to a period of rapid advancement in the accuracy and efficiency of weather forecasting technology. Over his 10+ years at Google DeepMind, he has led a research program that explored machine learning approaches for simulating complex physical systems, with a particular focus on the field of graph neural networks. He has over 100 published papers, and is a strong proponent for using AI to address scientific challenges and promote sustainability.

Professor Penelope Endersby CBE FREng

An outstanding government scientist and inspirational leader who has made significant national and international contributions to the delivery of life-saving science, services in defence and security, and weather and climate. She was appointed Chief Executive at the Met Office in 2018, President of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in 2023 and is the first woman appointed in each role. Prior to joining the Met Office, Penny had a distinguished career at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), where she was instrumental in building up Dstl’s capabilities in cyber and data science research and increasing their pipeline of innovative research and intellectual property. She was awarded the 2021 Society Medal by the British Computer Society, became an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2021 and awarded CBE in 2024.

Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS

Professor Sir Richard Friend is at the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors. These have found significant applications in LEDs, solar cells and electronics, and he was in the winning team for the MacRobert Award in 2002 for Cambridge Display Technology. Sir Richard chaired the MacRobert Award Committee from 2019 to 2024.

Dr Joshua Macabuag FREng

Dr Joshua Macabuag is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Renew-Risk and Engineering Manager at Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID). He has provided technical advances in catastrophe risk modelling, quantifying disaster risk for renewable energy (via his own company, Renew-Risk) and for developing countries (via the World Bank). Josh is also an exceptional engineering leader in disaster response, leading and growing the UK’s largest engineering team for urban search and rescue. He has deployed to the Nepal earthquake (2015); Hurricane Irma (2017); Albania’s earthquakes (September to November 2019); lead the UK support team for the Beirut port explosion (2020), and also deployed to Haiti in August 2021 and Turkey in March 2023. He inspires young and practising engineers and has had films and videos commissioned for This is Engineering and the Institution of Civil Engineers.