Professor Louise Slater

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, non-executive director of Oxford University Innovation, 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 was previously 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 (normalienne) 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)

Selected Research Projects

• 2025-2028: PI UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) Renewal, The Dynamic Drivers of Flood Risk (DRIFT).
• 2025-2027: Co-PI Minderoo Foundation, Predicting lethal humidity and associated excess mortality.
• 2025-2028: 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).
• 2021-2025: 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 Yuan Liu (2025-2028)
• Dr Xueying Li (2025-2027)
• Dr Sarah Wilson-Kemsley (2025-2027)
• Dr Shaozhen Liu (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

• Ms Liangyi Wang (2025-2026)
• 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)

Undergraduate

Professor Slater contributed to three courses for the Preliminary Examination: Geographical Controversies, Geographical Techniques, and Earth Systems Processes. She also co-developed the Geographic Data Science option. As a tutorial fellow at Hertford College, she was responsible for teaching students the full range of geographical topics for both the Preliminary Examination and the Final Honour School of Geography.

Postgraduate

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.

She was Academic Director of the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management (WSPM) (2024-2025) and previously convened the Climate and Catchment Processes module on WSPM.

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

Current Graduate Research Students

Former Graduate Research Students

Please see ORCiD for a comprehensive up-to-date list. Please contact Louise if you have trouble accessing any of these publications.