Irina Sandu

Director of Science and Innovation
Research, Earth System Modelling
Office of the Director-General

Summary:

Irina Sandu is Deputy Director-General and Director of Science and Innovation at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), a position she has held since July 2026. She leads the Research Department and provides strategic leadership and coordination of science and innovation across ECMWF’s activities and programmes.

Her focus is on advancing Earth-system modelling, the use of observations, data assimilation, AI and integrated prediction systems, and accelerating the translation of scientific advances into improved operational weather, climate and environmental prediction capabilities. A key priority is strengthening collaboration and co-development with ECMWF’s Member and Co-operating States, bringing together expertise and resources to develop shared capabilities that respond to evolving user needs.

Before taking up her current position, Irina was Science Lead and Director of ECMWF’s contribution to the European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative. In this role, she led the development and operationalisation of high-resolution digital twins of the Earth, the Digital Twin Engine and a wide range of AI activities, including the development of an AI Earth System Model. She coordinated scientific and technological developments across ECMWF and a broad European partnership involving more than 120 organisations, including national meteorological services, research institutions, supercomputing centres and industry.

Career background:

Irina joined ECMWF in 2010 as a scientist working on the representation of physical processes in numerical weather prediction systems. She subsequently led the Physical Processes team, contributing to improvements in atmospheric boundary layers, cloud processes, surface drag and low-level winds in ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System (IFS).

Her research has combined observations, process studies, numerical modelling and model evaluation, covering topics such as turbulence, clouds, land–atmosphere interactions and polar prediction, with a focus on understanding how physical processes affect weather and climate predictions.

She also coordinated ECMWF’s polar prediction activities, including contributions to the World Meteorological Organization’s Year of Polar Prediction and the European APPLICATE project. She later co-led the European nextGEMS project, which advanced the development of kilometre-scale Earth-system models and contributed to the scientific foundations of Destination Earth’s Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin.

Her responsibilities subsequently expanded from scientific research and team leadership to coordinating large European programmes. As Science Lead and later Director of ECMWF’s contribution to Destination Earth, she oversaw programme implementation and worked closely with the European Commission, ESA, EUMETSAT and partners across the European meteorological community.

Before joining ECMWF, Irina was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (2008–2010), where she studied marine boundary-layer clouds using observations, reanalyses and large-eddy simulations. She completed her PhD in atmospheric science at Météo-France and Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse in 2007, focusing on aerosol–cloud interactions.

In 2016, she received the WCRP/WWRP International Prize for Model Development. She has served on several international scientific committees and advisory bodies, including the WMO World Weather Research Programme Scientific Steering Committee, the WMO Polar Prediction Project Steering Group, the GEWEX Global Atmospheric System Studies panel and the Scientific Advisory Committee of Météo-France.