Last but not least of the new DARC students starting this year.
Tom Bayliss White is a new PhD student working in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading. His work will focus on predicting harmful algal toxins in the ocean through satellite data assimilation. The project will use methods which assimilate earth observation data from satellites into biogeochemical models, with the aim to improve understanding on how to predict harmful algal bloom events. The data will include the carbon and chlorophyll content contained both toxin- and non-toxin-producing species of phytoplankton, which is derived from satellite data on ocean colour. He is supervised by Professor Shovonlal Roy at the University of Reading, as well as by David Ford from the UK Met Office. The project is funded through the AFESP (Advancing the Frontiers of Earth System Prediction) doctoral training programme.
Tom graduated from the University of Exeter in 2025 with a first-class degree in Mathematics (Climate Science) MSci. His dissertation studied the development and characteristics of vegetation patterns in semi-arid regions. From June-September 2023, he worked as a research intern at Mount Royal University in Calgary, AB, Canada through the MITACS Globalink research internship scheme. Whilst there, he developed a simple data assimilation scheme that was applied to a spatial epidemiological model, with a focus on the 2018 Ebola outbreak in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.