Research group

Digital Oceans

Blue digital dots forming a horizontal wave KanawatVector© stock.adobe.com

A collaborative platform for exploring advancements and exchanging expertise in digital technology within the marine and maritime space. We foster innovation and research.

About

Research areas

Marine solutions and economies are expanding along with increasing threats to the marine environment. Harnessing progress in digital oceans is essential for addressing global and local challenges.

Digital Oceans focuses on advances in marine digital technology, in areas such as:

  • artificial intelligence
  • data infrastructure and management
  • ocean mapping
  • simulation
  • visualisation such as digital twins

Digital Oceans is a special interest group that aims to establish a collaborative platform for researchers to engage in marine digital applications and methods. Their interest is in a deeper understating of our oceans and in data-driven insights that can inform sustainable practices. They use digital innovation to address practices and changes affecting our marine environments. 

Digital Oceans facilitates efficiency and accessibility. This is achieved through advances in artificial intelligence that improve data analysis and decision-making processes; the optimisation of data structures and management; and new frontiers in ocean mapping, simulation and visualisations.

Our ambition is to:

  • promote and champion Digital Oceans
  • increase awareness to marine digital technologies 
  • foster collaborations and the exchange of ideas 

The Digital Oceans group strives to bridge the gap between cutting-edge marine digital technologies and social and human sciences. 

Our vision is to promote environmental stewardship and help innovations to impact our oceans and the global community.  

To find out more about the Digital Oceans Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champions Alexandra Karamitrou, Crystal El Safadi, Philip Leadbitter and Hugo Putuhena.

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group and our other special interest groups.

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Seyedvahid Vakili

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Sustainable shipping;
  • Net zero emissions;
  • Alternative fuels for (maritime) net zero emissions;
Connect with Seyedvahid

Dr Sheida Afshan PhD, FICE, MIStructE, CEng, FHEA

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • High performance metallic materials and structures for applications in infrastructure and energy sectors
  • Experimental and numerical investigation of structural materials and components
  • Metallic materials for liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel storage and transportation

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Sheida

Professor Simon Blainey PhD, FRGS, FHEA, MCIHT, CMILT

Research interests

  • Rail demand and operations modelling
  • GIS and transport
  • Transport decision support systems

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Simon

Dr Simon Boxall

Principal Teaching Fellow
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Professor Simon Cox

Head of Department

Research interests

  • My research focusses on computational tools, technologies and platforms and how they enable interdisciplinary problems to be solved in engineering and science.His team in the Computational Engineering and Design Group is applying and developing high performance and cloud computing in a variety of collaborative interdisciplinary computational science and engineering projects. These include:
  • High Performance and novel Computing SystemsCloud Computing and commercial distributed computing - which led to a spin out companyApplied computational algorithms Computational electromagnetics– which led to the formation of a spin-off company.New algorithms such as meshless methods and fast solvers.Data Management Simon is also Director of the Microsoft Institute for High Performance computing where he demonstrates why, where and how current and future Microsoft tools and technologies can be exploited to enable engineering and scientific research to deliver faster, cheaper and better results.
Connect with Simon

Professor Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon

Research interests

  • Data Protection
  • Data Governance
  • Platform Regulation
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Dr Stephanie Blankshein PhD

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Maritime/underwater archaeology
  • Landscape archaeology
  • Prehistory

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Stephanie

Professor Stephanie Jones

Professor of Literature and Law

Research interests

  • Literature and Law
  • Postcolonial and decolonial studies
  • Marine and maritime literatures
Connect with Stephanie

Professor Stephen Boyd BEng, MSc, PhD, CEng, MRINA

Professor

Research interests

  • Maritime Composites
  • Experimental and Numerical mechanics
  • Non-contact full-field techniques for validation of numerical models
Connect with Stephen

Emeritus Professor Stephen Daley

Research interests

  • Active control of viscoelastic metamaterials
  • Acoustic Black Holes for control of structural vibration and sound radiation
  • Active control of sound and vibration
Connect with Stephen

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Connect with us

Enquiries

If you're interested in joining us or collaborating, get in touch with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.