Dr Ari Cooper-Davis

Job: Geospatial Data Scientist

Employer: Our Rainwater Limited

PhD Thesis: Flow Timeseries Forecasting in Urban Drainage Networks Using Artificial Neural Network Models

PhD Supervisors: Professors Slobodan Djordjevic and David Butler

PhD Industrial Supervisor: Dr Ole Mark (Krüger A/S)

Ari was a PhD researcher on the EPSRC-funded WISE CDT programme between 2018-22 and was based at the University of Exeter. He passed his viva on “Flow Timeseries Forecasting in Urban Drainage Networks Using Artificial Neural Network Models” on 5th July 2023. Ari now works as a Geospatial Data Scientist for Our Rainwater Limited.

Background

Through outdoor pursuits such as surfing, kayaking, and caving, Ari developed a keen interest in maintaining the quality of natural water resources. He aimed to use his PhD to support these interests; by providing forecasts of discharge and pollutant load to wastewater treatment plants he wanted to reduce the frequency and severity of combined sewer overflows. Using powerful open source machine learning libraries combined with industry standard hydrodynamic catchment models he worked on producing a real time control tool for exploitation in industry.

Ari had previously graduated from the University of Exeter in 2018 with an MSci in Natural Sciences. During his degree he explored his academic interests in computer science, catchment hydrology, and environmental science. For his masters research project he worked with the Exeter Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) Group as a computer scientist to improve the accuracy and efficiency of this novel 3D imaging technique.

Research Interests

• Machine Learning & AI
• Factors effecting water quality
• Urban drainage and catchment hydrology
• Karst hydrodynamics.