Sarah Sparrow
Climate scientist
From a young age I was interested in weather and climate, studying clouds and recording weather data with homemade weather stations. So after completing a four year integrated masters in Chemistry and Molecular Physics at the University of Nottingham, I went on to pursue a DPhil in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Oxford. After a brief foray into IT consultancy, where I enhanced my software skills through building and configuring business management systems, I returned to academia to study large scale variability in the atmosphere. More recently I have become interested in how we can use large ensembles of weather and climate model data to study changes in extreme weather events and their impacts on society. My research involves developing tools that couple data produced by weather and climate models to impacts models over a wide range of sectors including health, hydrology, energy and finance to inform decision-making. I regularly run extreme event attribution workshops and hackathons which help to train young scientists, as well as several outreach and engagement activities, including “Stop the Flood” during Super Science Saturday held at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and showcasing the citizen science project climateprediction.net at the Curiosity Carnival.
