Professor Louise Slater

Professor of Hydroclimatology

Group Lead, Hydroclimate Extremes
Fellow and Tutor at Hertford College, Oxford
Associate Head, Social Sciences Division (Research & Impact)
Future Leaders Fellow (FLF) of UK Research and Innovation
Editor, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS)
Associate Editor, Earth's Future
Editorial Board Member, Advances in Water Resources
Chair, Hydrological Forecasting Subdivision of the European Geosciences Union
Chair, UK Flood Hydrology Roadmap Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG)
Academic Director, MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management (WSPM)
Leadership Team, Intelligent Earth Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment.

Academic Profile

Louise Slater is Professor of Hydroclimatology and a Future Leaders Fellow of UK Research and Innovation (2021-2028). She leads the Hydro-Climate Extremes research group, which develops computational approaches to detect, attribute, and predict how changes in climate and land cover may affect water-related extremes and society. Professor Slater is Associate Head of the Social Sciences Division for Research and Impact, Academic Director of the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management (WSPM) and Co-investigator of Intelligent Earth, the University of Oxford’s Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment. She was previously Chair of the Oxford Water Network (2019-2021).

Externally, Professor Slater is Chair of the Hydrological Forecasting Subdivision of the European Geosciences Union (2024-2026) and Chair of the UK Flood Hydrology Roadmap’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG) (2024-2025). She is Editor for the EGU journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS) and Associate Editor for the AGU journal Earth's Future.

Before joining the University of Oxford, Professor Slater held Lectureships at Loughborough University and Queen Mary University of London. She is an alumna of the Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon and of the Classes Préparatoires at the Lycée Henri IV, France, and holds a PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from the University of St Andrews.

Professor Slater acts as a reviewer for international journals and funders in the fields of hydroclimatology and climate impacts. She is a member of several learned societies including the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the European Geosciences Union (EGU), the British Society for Geomorphology (BSG), and the British Hydrological Society (BHS).

Awards

2024: Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth Science
2023: Gordon Warwick Award for excellence in geomorphological research (mid-career award), British Society for Geomorphology (BSG)
2023: Outstanding Editor Award, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS)
2022: Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award, American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2021: Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award, European Geosciences Union (EGU)
2021: Gill Memorial Award for Outstanding Early Career Research in Physical Geography, Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG)

Current Research

Selected Research Projects

2025-2027: PI Ayrton Challenge programme, SMART-HS: Smart Hydropower Solutions for Sustainable and Equitable Energy Access in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
2025-2027: PI Leverhulme Trust, Exploring novel XAI approaches to uncover climate and land cover change impacts on large-sample hydro-climatological extremes.
2024-2032: Co-I UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment (Intelligent Earth).
2021-2028: PI UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF), The Dynamic Drivers of Flood Risk (DRIFT).
2021-2026: Co-I NERC Large Grant, The Evolution of Global Flood Hazard and Risk (EvoFlood).
2019-2022: PI John Fell Fund, Understanding river behaviour to better predict future flooding.
2018-2019: Co-I NERC/ESRC Innovation grant, Financial planning for flood risk.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr Xueying Li (2025-2027)
Dr Boen Zhang (2023-2025)
Dr Yinxue Liu (2022-2024)
Dr Simon Moulds (2021-2023)
Dr Michel Wortmann (2021-2023)
Dr Shasha Han (2020-2021)
Dr Laurent Courty (2018-2019)

Visiting Researchers

Dr Qimin Deng (2024-2025)
Mr Liangkun Deng (2023-2024)
Dr Chunlin Li (2024-2025)
Dr Andrew Schepen (2024)
Dr Xihui Gu (2021-2023)
Dr Jiabo Yin (2022-2024)
Dr Fatih Tosunoglu (2022-2023)
Ms Xueying Li (2022-2023)
Mr Keke Fan (2020-2021)
Mr Wei Sha (2020-2021)

Teaching and Supervision

Undergraduate

Louise previously contributed to three courses for the Preliminary Examination: Geographical Controversies, Geographical Techniques, and Earth Systems Processes. She also co-developed the Option on Geographic Data Science. At Hertford College, Louise and her colleagues are responsible for teaching students across the entire breadth of geographical topics for the Preliminary Examination and Final Honour School of Geography.

Postgraduate

Professor Slater is Academic Director of the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management (WSPM). She previously convened the Climate and Catchment Processes module on WSPM.

Professor Slater is co-investigator of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment, Intelligent Earth. On the CDT, she co-leads the Natural Hazards module of the Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment.

Louise welcomes enquiries from individuals wishing to undertake doctoral or post-doctoral research in the following, or related, areas: flood science, streamflow forecasting and prediction, fluvial geomorphology, and computational data science approaches in hydro-climatology.

Current Graduate Research Students

Emma Ford

(Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics)

Atmospheric Patterns Triggering Extreme Flood Events Across the UK

Ana Silva Tavares

Explainable Neural Networks for Subseasonal Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Forecasting

Former Graduate Research Students

Bailey Anderson	Large sample statistical estimation of streamflow sensitivity to climate and land cover change
Marcus Buechel	Modelling the influence of widespread afforestation on UK hydrology
Katie Kowal	Leveraging Drought Prediction for Enhanced Preparedness in the Central American Dry Corridor
Jiajun Li	Exploring uncertainty in stage-discharge rating curves.
Timo Kelder	Using large climate model ensembles to quantify and explain climate extremes.