About Sofia Caires

Dr. Sofia Caires is a metocean expert with more than 30 years of work experience and a long track record of scientific publications. Her main expertise fields are metocean modelling and metocean data analysis, validation and assimilation. She has a degree in Naval Engineering, an M.Sc. in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics. She worked for the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute as a member of the ERA-40 team and was in charge of validating, analysing and disseminating the ERA-40 wave and wind climate data. Later she changed her focus to the modelling of future climate, working on statistical downscaling and uncertainty analyses of wave climate projections for Environment Canada.

She joined WL | Delft Hydraulics at the end of 2005 (going on to Deltares in 2008) and has since then worked in many metocean projects aiming at the determination of the mean and extreme wind, wave, water level and flow conditions, including eventual effects of climate change and variability. The determination of these conditions is needed, for example, for the design and maintenance of offshore and nearshore structures, coastal erosion studies, flood forecasting and environmental impact assessments. She has in particular lead the development of Deltares' ORCA (metOcean data tRansformation, Classification and Analysis) and TCWiSE (Tropical Cyclone Wind Statistical Estimation) tools. Furthermore, she has been contributing to the development and assessment of statistical methods applied in the long-term assessment of the Dutch primary water defences. In parallel with these activities she has continuously been working and providing advice on (phase averaging and phase resolving) wave modelling and data assimilation. In particular, in the development of accurate flood forecasting systems.

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