About Jing Zhao
Dr. Jing Zhao got her PhD in Applied Mathematics from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in 2015. Her expertise lies in fast numerical solvers for mathematical models, and high-performance computing.
That same year, she joined Deltares as a Scientific Software Engineer, where she contributed to the development and maintenance of the Delft3D Flexible Mesh (D-HYDRO) software. She participated projects including investigating numerical solvers for acceleration (e.g. researching on a domain decomposition method for parallel computing and on implicit time integration, testing performance of Intel Math Kernel) and developing new features, bug fixing, etc. Dr. Zhao has established herself as expertises of the software's parallel computing capabilities, its post-processing tool "mapmerge," and its restart functionality which is widely used in operational systems like weather forecasting.
In September 2024, she transitioned to the department of Environmental Hydrodynamics and Forecasting, where she started working on contributing to Delft-FEWS (Flood forecasting and Early Warning Systems). Moreover, she has big interests in artificial intelligence (AI) and she works on developing AI models for storm surge forecasting.
In 2018, Dr. Zhao initiated the D-HYDRO Suite Newsletter, which is circulated internally at Deltares to over 500 colleagues. Since then, she has been working on this monthly newsletter. It serves as a platform for both developers and users of D-HYDRO, to share updates on the latest improvements, features, and practical applications of the software, enhancing internal communication and collaboration.
Since October 2023, Dr. Zhao has also served as a Guest Researcher at TU Delft’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science. Her research focuses on fast numerical solvers for shallow water equations, artificial intelligence in hydrodynamic modelling and simulation, and high-performance computing (e.g. CPU and GPU computing). She is actively involved in supervising master’s theses, student internships, and PhD projects, and is committed to strengthening the collaboration between Deltares and TU Delft.