About Maike Sonnewald

I am an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at UC Davis, where I lead the Computational Climate and Ocean Group. I am also Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington and Affiliate Researcher at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. My research develops physics-informed and trustworthy AI methods to understand ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, and climate dynamics, and to translate that understanding into tools for prediction and policy.

I work at the intersection of Earth science and data science. I earned a Ph.D. at the University of Southampton and the UK National Oceanography Centre (EPSRC-funded), then was a postdoctoral associate at MIT and an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton, where I held PI rights and secured funding to hire a postdoc. I have also held visiting appointments at Harvard, UT Austin, and institutions across Europe.

My work has informed NOAA's artificial intelligence strategic plan, New Zealand's Marine Protected Area legislation, and policy guidance from the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union. I have given 88 invited talks worldwide, including a 2026 plenary at the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth and keynotes to the United Nations ITU, NOAA, and the Department of Energy. I received a certificate of recognition from the California State Assembly (2023), serve on the US CLIVAR Process Study and Model Improvement Panel and the NOAA Model Diagnostic Task Force, and am Associate Editor of Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems (AMS) and on the editorial board of Machine Learning: Earth (IOP). My group is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, NOAA, and other agencies.

Joining my Computational Climate and Ocean Group

I lead the Computational Climate and Ocean Group at UC Davis. I am not currently hiring. Head to our group page to learn more.

History

Position and affiliations

  • Assistant Professor at University of California, Davis (2023–present)
  • Affiliate Assistant Professor at University of Washington (2022–present)

Education

  • University of Southampton, UK (2011–2016)
    Ph.D. Complex Systems Simulation at the National Oceanography Center
    Dissertation: Ocean model utility dependence on horizontal resolution
    Advisors: George Nurser, Joel J.-M. Hirschi, and James Dyke
    Full Fellowship: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK)
  • University of Southampton, UK (2006–2011)
    M. Sci. magna cum laude, complex systems simulation, 2011
    M. Sci. magna cum laude, physical oceanography, 2010

Professional history

Past positions

  • Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University (2020–2023)
  • Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016–2020)
    Advisors: C. Wunsch, P. Heimbach, and S. Dutkiewicz

Other positions

  • Affiliate Researcher at NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (2020–2026)
  • Visiting Scholar at Princeton University (2023–2025)
  • Visiting Professor at Universit ́e catholique de Louvain, Belgium (2023)
  • Visiting Scientist at University of Washington (2019–2022)
  • Visiting Scientist at Harvard University (2017–2019)
  • Visiting Scientist at Universit ́e Grenoble Alpes, France (2018–2019)
  • Visiting Scientist at University of Texas at Austin (2016–2018)

Impact

Honors and spotlights

  • Nominated Keck Fellow (2026)
  • Certificate of recognition from the California State Assembly (2023)
  • UC Davis Faculty Scholar of the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS) (2023)
  • Spotlight paper at the 2021 International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
  • Featured on the cover of the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES) (2021)
  • Invited core member for Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) program “ML in the Physics of Climate” (2021)
  • Winner at Simons Foundation visualization competition (2019)

Selected grants

  • 2026 Expanse AI Resource: 2,000 GPU hours – PI for “OceanCBM: Ocean Concept Bottleneck Models of marine heat content”. National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot award
  • 2025 $7,500 – PI for “Building Resilient Fisheries Under Climate Change”. UC Davis Global Affairs Advancing Sustainable Development Goals
  • 2024 $1,148,868 – PI for “Collaborative Research: Leveraging AI to Observe and Predict the Drivers of Mixed Layer Heat Inventory Variability”. National Science Foundation
  • 2023 $578,000 – PI for “Improving coastal sea level predictions with ocean process insight guided by machine learning”. NOAA Climate Program Office
  • 2023 £958,000 – Co-investigator for “Bridging theory to reality in projections of the Asian and West African monsoons (BRIDGE)”. National Environmental Research Council (UK)
  • 2021 $31,032 – Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI)
  • 2020 $48,595 – Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI)

Invited expert and advisory roles

  • Nominated Expert for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine effort on AI and climate (2026)
  • Member, US CLIVAR Process Study and Model Improvement Panel (2026–present), under the World Climate Research Program
  • Member, NOAA Model Diagnostic Task Force (2026–present)
  • Consulted Louisville Metro Government (Kentucky) in strategic plan for AI roll-out (2025)
  • Expert committee member for the “Computational system and modeling framework for frontier Earth system science and climate simulation/projection international summit” (2024)
  • Panel member at the 2024 American Meteorological Society Washington Forum which examines public policy issues across the weather, water, and climate enterprise
  • Panel member at the California Ocean Science Trust 2024 symposium on “Fishery Disasters under Climate Change”
  • Panel member at “Physical Oceanography and AI” meeting for US CLIVAR (2022)

Invited policy talks

  • Invited talk at the 2024 American Meteorological Society Washington Forum on “The Weather/Climate Data needed for Reliable AI”
  • Invited talk on “Ocean predictability potential” at the California Ocean Science Trust 2024 symposium on “Fishery Disasters under Climate Change”
  • Invited talk on “Predictability, Predictions, and Applications Interface” for US CLIVAR by the World Climate Research Program under United Nations auspices (2023)
  • Invited talk on “Physical Oceanography and AI” for US CLIVAR (2022)
  • Invited talk to NOAA GFDL HQ site review (2022)
  • Keynote at a Department of Energy AI workshop on “Ocean Grand Challenges” (2021)
  • Invited talk to NOAA Senior Management Meeting, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (2020)

Research uptake and policy influence

  • Cited by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of the UN in a concept note on the status, opportunities and challenges of data handling and application of AI in environmental modeling, with recommendations for WMO action (2021)
  • Featured in NOAA's artificial intelligence strategic plan 2021–2025, a response to the President's Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in AI
  • Cited in a 2020 European Union policy recommendation: “Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union report on Artificial intelligence and the fisheries sector”
  • Work contributed to the science basis for New Zealand's Marine Protected Area legislation (2020)

Advising

Postdocs

  • Lauren Hoffman (UC Santa Cruz, NSF-CAIG)
  • Sanah Suri (UC Davis)
  • Laique Merlin Djeutchouang (UC Davis)
  • Arijeet Dutta (U. Birmingham, NERC-BRIDGE)

Graduate students

  • Lumina Kinsinger-Dang (UC Davis)
  • Jake Tallman (UC Davis)
  • Kieran Ringel (UC Davis)
  • Makayla Mcdevit (UC Davis)
  • Lily Walker (Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology)
  • Yvonne Jenniges (Alfred Wegener Institute)
  • Simon Draeger (UC Davis MSci 2023)
  • Jinfei Wang (PhD 2023–2025)
  • Avery Wood (UC Davis MSci 2024–2025)
  • Sanah Suri (Washington University in St. Louis PhD 2024–2025)
    subsequently postdoc at UC Davis
  • Jacob Cohen (UW PhD 2021–2025)
  • Mariana Clare (Imperial PhD 2021)
    subsequently researcher at ECMWF
  • Giangiacomo Navarra (Georgia Tech. PhD 2021–2022)
    subsequently postdoc at Princeton

Undergraduate students

  • Ria Bhandari (UC Davis)
  • Tianyang Duo (Wuhan University)
    subsequently PhD program at ETH Zurich
  • Jasper Dong (UC Davis)
    subsequently MSci University of Washington
  • William Yik (Harvey-Mudd) Holling Scholar (NOAA)
    subsequently PhD student at University of Washington with Department of Energy Fellowship
  • Zouberou Sayibou (Bronx Community College)
    subsequently CS major at Stanford

Teaching

I received the Kaufman Teaching Certificate from MIT in 2017 and enjoy lecturing to a wide range of audiences. I have taught in-person and virtual classes and workshops as well as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).

Courses

  • ECS 171 (2026): UC Davis. Lecturer on record, "Introduction to Machine Learning", undergraduate. Participants: 110
  • ECS 171 (2024): UC Davis. Lecturer on record, "Introduction to Machine Learning", undergraduate. Participants: 100
  • Climate Change AI Virtual Summer School (2026): "AI for Ocean and Marine Life". Registered: 9000+
  • European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Massive Open Online Course (2023): "Machine Learning in Weather and Climate". Registered: 9000+
  • AOS 551 (2021): Princeton University. Co-taught, lecturer on record, "Deep learning in geophysical fluid dynamics". Graduate level. Participants: 10

Selected Guest Lectures

  • "Machine Learning for oceanography" (UCLovaine; 2023)
  • Ocean Data Science Summer School (2023)
  • ECS 293 Guest Lecture (UC Davis; 2023)
  • Ocean Data Science Summer School (2022)
  • "Rossby Wave Theory" (GEOMAR Helmholz; 2022)
  • "Uses and Misuses of Machine Learning for Geoscience" (University of Washington; 2022)
  • "Machine Learning for the Geosciences" (GFDL Holling, CIMES and Lapenta undergraduate interns'; 2020)
  • "Machine Learning in Geoscience" (Harvard University; 2019)
  • "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Applied Unsupervised Learning" (Harvard University; 2019)

Selected Tutorials and Workshops

  • Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM): Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences. (Milan, Italy; 2021)
  • NOAA-GFDL (2021)
  • "Machine learning and climate modeling" (Princeton University & GFDL; 2019)
  • "Vector Calculus in ECCO" (AGU; 2018)

Commitment to diversity

I believe that diversity is an asset, and that talent should be recognized regardless of race, size, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender-identity or sexual orientation. At UC Davis I was selected a CAMPOS faculty member. Outreach I've engaged in includes the Unlearning Racism in Geoscience project, outreach to the Bronx Community College, and hosting interns from traditionally underserved communities. Mentorship has played an important role for me, and I am formally and informally mentoring graduate students. At MIT I worked to lower the financial barriers to the outdoors as a guide, bringing together diverse individuals in a setting otherwise inaccessible. As a teacher, I try to emphasize existing diversity through highlighting the diverse individuals that made the discoveries.

Outreach

I enjoy engaging with the wider community. A recent highlight that is hard to top is being a member of the COPEZILLA EAPS team for the Red Bull Flugtag. Kelsey Tsipis for EAPS News snapped a great photo of me at the "Nautical day at the MIT Museum". Previously, my engagement found me helping an NGO at COP15 communicating climate change, or being asked to present for the International and Industrial Advisory board of the ICSS.

Personal

I was born in Copenhagen but raised in Norway, and am German from my mothers side. I am fluent in all three languages, and I enjoy traveling to explore new cities and taking in culture.

My main sport is distance running, and I am a passionate proponent of increasing representation and diversity in the outdoors. My efforts here span mentoring and establishing female records in spaces that are male dominated at present. For example, partnering with Katherine Rosenfeld to set a first and fastest known time (FKT) for running the 70+mile High Sierra Trail. I also enjoy climbing, backcountry skiing and mountaineering and have climbed all 5 statovolcanoes in Washington state unassisted.

I am classically trained as a flutist and contemporary/classical ballet dancer, but a series of injuries and life decisions set a stop to this. I have had the honour of performing at the Odd Fellows Palace (DK), Olavshallen (NO) or Turner Sims (UK).