Team
Dr Peter McComb
Managing Director and Physical Oceanographer
Peter has over 25 years experience in science leadership and ocean enterprise, building an extensive portfolio of applied science outcomes. He has designed and led numerous oceanographic measurement campaigns, and continues to provide strategic science advisory and governance roles.
Dr Tom Durrant
Director and Physical Oceanographer
Tom has over 15 years experience in applied research and operational forecasting. He has lead the development of national wave forecasting systems for both the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the Meteorological Service of New Zealand. He lead the science research and development team at MetOcean Solutions, now the oceanographic division of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand. Tom has extensive experience combining modern technological approaches with state-of-the-art science to produce agile and flexible modelling systems, reducing the time from research outcomes to operational application.
Dr Rafael Guedes
Director and Physical Oceanographer
Rafael has over 12 years expertise in modelling and analysis of nearshore waves and coastal processes. He has developed coastal wave forecasting systems and produced numerous multi-decadal wave hindcasts. While at the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, he managed the oceanographic hindcasting databases and data delivery services. He has led the development of tools and open-source software combining science and technology.
Dr David Johnson
Director and Physical Oceanographer
David has over 15 years experience in numerical modelling, data analysis and visualisation. He has been involved in numerous applied process modelling studies of waves, currents and sediment transport, and has produced many long running hindcast datasets. David was co-founder and technical director of Metocean Solutions, now the oceanographic division of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand. He developed all their first generation automated forecast, hindcast, data management and display systems, and subsequently acted as technical lead for continued architecture and development.
Dr Sébastien Delaux
Physical Oceanographer
Sébastien has over 17 years experience in mathematical modelling, applied mathematics and programming. As a numerical modeller with strong background in computer science, he has acquired extensive experience in the modelling and development of numerical tools aimed at a wide range of applications including ship motion, small-scale fluid dynamics and the delivery of metocean data in general. In his last four years at the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, Sébastien has been leading and taking part in research projects looking at leveraging state of art machine learning techniques to produce short term forecasts
Andre Lobato
Physical Oceanographer
Andre Lobato is a seasoned Scientific Software Engineer with a passion for Oceanography and Environmental Sciences. With over a decade of experience in the field, he has honed his skills in Python development, automated and distributed systems, Linux and Cloud computing. After completing his bachelors in Oceanography in Brazil, Andre Lobato joined the Brazilian Navy Research institute, where he worked until 2013. He then joined MetOcean Solutions, where he worked until 2022. He currently serves as a Senior Scientific Software Engineer at Oceanum Limited, where he develops systems to enable scientists to make easy use of Cloud technologies. Andre Lobato is committed to advancing Oceanography and Environmental Sciences through technology and innovation.
Dr Kevin Ewans
Associate Scientist and Physical Oceanographer
Kevin has over 35 years’ experience worldwide as an engineer specifying metocean design conditions for offshore structures. His work has involved research into various oceanographic phenomena, including fundamental aspects of ocean waves, the application of extremal analysis for developing metocean design criteria, and numerous site-specific climatological investigations.