13 Oct 2025
Thomas Monahan wins ERCOFTAC Da Vinci award for best European fluid mechanics doctorate
Prize for young researchers is awarded annually in recognition of an excellent PhD thesis in theoretical and applied fluid dynamics and outstanding scientific contributions with engineering relevance
Thomas Monahan has been awarded the Da Vinci Award for the best fluid mechanics doctorate in Europe following on from his winning the Osborne Reynolds prize earlier in the year. The competition took place at the ERCOFTAC Autumn Festival in Darmstadt where the five finalists presented their results. The award is recognized with a 1000-euro prize.
Thomas’ doctorate used machine learning to study and predict tides and storm surges. A key contribution was using machine learning to exploit a theory for how sea-levels behave under forcing which originated in the 1960s. This work has paved the way for accurate global flood forecasting which he is continuing. He also received mainstream publicity for his work on satellite observations of a tsunamis-induced seiche in Greenland.
Thomas was a student at St Cross College. Following his doctorate he has remained in Oxford supported by an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, and holds the W.W. Spooner Junior Research Fellowship at New College. Thomas’ work has been supervised by Professor Tom Adcock, Professor Steve Roberts and Dr Tianning Tang.
