Dr. Jing Zhao obtained her PhD degree in the Numerical Analysis Group of the Department of Applied Mathematics in the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in 2015. Her PhD research focused on developing fast numerical solvers for the wheel-rail contact problems, arising from the railway industry. She has expertise in numerical iterative solvers and high-performance computing.

In the same year, after her PhD, she joined Deltares as a scientific software engineer, focusing on developing Deltares’ scientific software, particularly the Delft3D Flexible Mesh, which implements numerical solvers for hydrodynamic modelling. The users of this software include governmental organizations, consultant companies, universities and research institutes all around the world.

Since 2024, she has shifted toward Scientific Machine Learning (SciML), where she is researching on developing AI models, e.g. Graph Neural Networks–based models, as emulators of traditional numerical models for fast storm surge forecasting. Alongside this, she contributes to the development of Delft-FEWS (Flood forecasting and Early Warning System), by working on the configuration and related AI innovations.

Moreover, she maintains a close research collaboration with Delft University of Technology, on topics of SciML and fast numerical solvers (e.g., GPU-accelerated methods), by supervising PhD, Master’s, and internship projects, to bridge academic research and practical innovation.

For more information about her, please visit her LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jing-zhao-542bb775/

In this lunch lecture, she will give a general introduction of Deltares, talk about her work/projects at Deltares as an Applied Mathematician, and possible student project(s) at Deltares.