Research in Applied Mathematics
I am currently a DARE-funded research fellow (0.5FTE, since August 2018) in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds. From January 2018 to August 2020, I was also a teaching assistant (0.5FTE). Previously, I completed a PhD and held a short postdoctoral research position here (2013-17), working with Onno Bokhove and Steve Tobias, before taking some time out for half a year travelling around the UK, Europe, and NZ. Before finding myself in Leeds, I completed degrees at the Universities of Bristol (BSc Maths; 2007-2011) and Birmingham (MSc Meteorology; 2011/12) with a couple of spells in Germany (Dresden for Erasmus in 2009/10 and Kiel for some post-MSc research in 2012). For more info, have a look at the pages linked on the left, and below...
My research interests concern the mathematical and statistical modelling of atmospheric and environmental phenomena, including (but not limited to!):
18 Dec. 2020: An article (preprint) published on EarthArXiv: 'Idealized forecast-assimilation experiments for convective-scale Numerical Weather Prediction'. Thanks to all co-authors for their contributions!
28 Oct. 2020: presenting at the Fluids ECR webinar.
23 Sept. 2020: DARE blog post summarising our submission to DEFRA's flooding inquiry.
15 Sept. 2020: introducing the new Flood-Excess-Volume github site: several case studies including source code and output. See each river's repository for more info.
2 Sept. 2020: written evidence submitted to the UK Gov's DEFRA flooding inquiry.
August 2020: GitHub updated with three new repos, incl. documentation and source code, on (i) Wetropolis modelling, (ii) well-balanced shallow-water flows, and (iii) some old work on the shallow-water Riemann problem.
1 August 2020: DARE pilot project 'Wetropolis rainfall and flood demonstrator: real-time simulations with data assimilation' starts, til Dec. 2020.
11-12 June 2020: 'Flood modelling and forecasting challenges in industry' workshop, University of Sheffield. Invited keynote and Wetropolis showcase. [CANCELLED due to Covid-19.]
5 June 2020: A short article (preprint) published on arXiv:2006.03370: 'Ensuring well-balanced shallow water flows via a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method: issues at lowest order'. Original manuscript rejected by JCP (as a short research note).
14 May 2020: 'Wetropolis extreme rainfall and flood demonstrator: from mathematical design to outreach', published by HESS (Education and communication). Subsequently selected as a highlight article -- well done everyone!
31 March 2020: Some news items on our recently published work, from the university and the Yorkshire Post.
28 Feb. 2020: 'A Cost-Effectiveness Protocol for Flood-Mitigation Plans Based on Leeds’ Boxing Day 2015 Floods', published by Water.
20 Feb. 2020: Nominated for a Leeds Partnership award -- I don't know the details but thanks to whoever made the nomination!
21 Jan. 2020: DARE blog post summarising some of our recent work.
29 Aug. 2019: 'Communicating (nature‐based) flood‐mitigation schemes using flood‐excess volume', published by River Research and Applications. Online: https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3507.
27 May 2019: 'Wetropolis... from mathematical design to outreach and research', published online as a HESS discussion paper. See also corresponding GitHub site.
16-17 May 2019: We are hosting a workshop in Leeds, focussing on idealised models of (convective-scale) Numerical Weather Prediction and their use in data assimilation research. Thanks to the School of Maths at Leeds and the London Mathematical Society for providing funds.
7-12 April 2019: EGU general assembly, Vienna. One talk on DA (slides available), another on FEV (slides available -- presented by OB), and a Wetropolis poster.
11 March 2019: 'Wetropolis extreme rainfall and flood demonstrator: from mathematical design to outreach and research'. Preprint on EarthArXiv.
17 Dec. 2018: DARE project board meeting, University of Reading.
27 Sept. 2018: water@leeds annual Confluence 2018 showcasing water-related research at the University of Leeds, including lightning talk (3 mins!) on flood-excess volume (or how Wetropolis inspired a new tool for flood-mitigation assessment).
27 Sept. 2018: Data Assimilation for the REsilient city (DARE) blog published - an accessible overview on using ‘flood-excess volume’ to quantify and communicate flood mitigation schemes.
17-19 Sept. 2018: Leeds-Kyoto International Symposium: Advanced Engineering for Natural Disaster Identification, Mitigation, Prevention, and Response. Group session: 'Interdisciplinary approach to mitigate/prevent water-related disasters', with short presentation. See also poster presentation, prepared for 'Evidence-Based Decisions for UK Landscapes' in Cambridge.
Aug. 2018: official start as a research fellow (0.5FTE), funded through the DARE project, focussing on aspects of flood modelling and dynamic control strategies.
15 June 2018: Yorkshire iCASP Confluence 2018 at Brewery Wharf in Leeds, with Wetropolis in action.
8-10 Jan. 2018: Maths Foresees: mitigating severe environmental events. Final general assembly, University of Leeds.
Jan. 2018: return to Leeds as a teaching assistant (0.5FTE) in the School of Maths.
June - Dec. 2017: seven months on the road in the UK, Europe, and NZ.
July 2017: Paper accepted for publication in Tellus A: Dynamical Meteorology and Oceanography.
31 May 2017: GitHub page: an idealised convective-scale forecast-assimilation framework. Source code is live and working... use with care, comments welcome, and more updates expected in the future!
16 May 2017: PhD thesis, 'An idealised fluid model of Numerical Weather Prediction: dynamics and data assimilation', published online here.
3-6 April 2017: Environmental Modelling in Industry Study Group at the Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge. Organised by Maths Foresees. I provided a 'live' report from the event.
20-24 March 2017: research visit to Sebastian Reich's group at the Mathematics Institute, University of Potsdam. Invited seminar here and at the FU Berlin - slides available.
3 March 2017: viva passed!
28 Jan. 2017: Flood recovery and resilience conference, Bilsborrow (near Preston; organised by the Churchtown Flood Action Group). Wetropolis talk and demonstration.
6 Jan. 2017: 'Dynamics of Rotating Fluids' meeting, UCL.
21 Dec. 2016: thesis submitted!!
14 Nov. 2016: Wetropolis all-day demonstration in School of Maths.
3-11 Nov. 2016: research visit to the Met Office, including invited 'Weather Science' seminar.
2 Nov. 2016: Invited seminar at DARC, University of Reading.
5-7 Sept. 2016: Maths Foresees general assembly, Edinburgh. Wetropolis makes its debut (accompanying presentation).
18-22 July 2016: 'International Symposium on Data Assimilation' at the University of Reading. Abstract accepted for poster.
8 May 2016: 'The Science of Floods', Hebden Bridge. Public event organised by Pennine Prospects and contribution from Maths Foresees.
January/February 2016: 3 week visit to the 'Data Assimilation and Ensembles' group at the Met Office. Presented latest work in the 'Data Assimilation Methods' group science meeting.
Oct.-Dec. 2015: Broken ankle!
1-5 June 2015: 'Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis and Data Assimilation in Meteorology and Oceanography' (a.k.a. '10th Adjoint Workshop'), West Virginia, USA.
18-20 May 2015: 'Maths Foresees': mitigating severe environmental events. First general assembly, University of Leeds.
12-17 April 2015: EGU General Assembly, Vienna, Austria. Abstract pdf here
5 March 2015: Fluids seminar, Applied Maths, Leeds.
January/February 2015: 3 week visit to the 'Data Assimilation and Ensembles' group at the Met Office. Including 'Met Office Academic Partnership' poster session on 12th February.
15-19 September 2014: Summer school on 'Data Assimilation in environmental sciences' at the University of Reading.
Sept. 2014: Paper published in Journal of Climate.
August/September 2014: 3 week visit to the 'Data Assimilation and Ensembles' group at the Met Office.
14-18 July 2014: CliMathNet conference 2014. Program here.
12-14 May 2014: Reading-Warwick Data Assimilation meeting, University of Warwick. Program here.
30 April 2014: Applied PG Seminar, School of Maths, Leeds. Title: 'Data Assimilation and Numerical Weather Prediction.'
24-28 Feb. 2014: 'International Symposium on Data Assimilation' at LMU, Munich. Here is my poster.
2-6 December 2013: Partial Differential Equations and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics workshop, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge. Program here.
Teaching and research at the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds.
Contact: t.kent[at]leeds.ac.uk
Repositories under tkent198.
School of Maths, Leeds, 16/17 May 2019 - more info here.