An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Simon J. Keogh

Simon's role is to lead and manage the Space Applications and Nowcasting strategic area of Weather Science.

Areas of expertise

  • Satellite imagery
  • Meteorology and Oceanography
  • Ocean surface wind scatterometers
  • Sea surface temperature radiometers
  • HF radar
  • NWP data assimilation trials
  • ITIL Service Management
  • Leadership and Management

Current activities

Simon's current work includes:

  • Leading and managing an area consisting of three teams of scientists and scientific software engineers who carry out R&D work on improving our nowcasting and situational awareness capability
  • Chairing the Met Office Expert Group on Nowcasting and Situational Awareness
  • Chairing the Met Office Satellite Data Working Group
  • Chairing EUMETSAT’s Operations Working Group, which is attended by delegates from EUMETSAT member states and has the goal of influencing the operational activities of EUMETSAT for the benefit of member states

Career background

Before joining the Met Office Simon gained a BSc(Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics from the University of Leeds and then a PhD at the University of Southampton (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton), in the use of marine radiometers for the correction of satellite sea surface temperatures.

Simon began his Met Office career in 1999 after joining the Observations Development area as a support scientist focused on improving our marine and land surface observing networks. From 2003 Simon spent five years working as the ocean wind scatterometer scientist in the Satellite Applications branch. His most recent achievements in that area were the introduction of the MetOp-ASCAT and WindSat scatterometers into our Numerical Weather Prediction data assimilation system. In 2008 Simon joined the Ocean Forecasting Research and Development area, to take part in the MyOcean EC project. In 2011, Simon became the manager of the Satellite Data Products and Systems team, which he then led for almost a decade before spinning up a new area of the Met Office in 2020 (Space Applications and Nowcasting) that aims to improve our nowcasting and situational awareness capabilities through our improved use of observations. Throughout his career he has been an enthusiastic member of the Institute of Physics.

External recognition

  • Sep 2021 onwards: Simon is Chair of EUMETSAT’s Operations Working Group
  • May 2013 onwards: Simon is a core member of the United Nations WMO Expert Team on Satellite Systems Utilization (ET-SSU, formerly ET-SUP and IPET-SUP)
  • Sep 2011 – Sep 2021: Simon was UK delegate to the EUMETSAT Operations Working Group
  • Sep 2008 - Jun 2011: Simon led the Service Management Work Package in the EC FP7 project "MyOcean" and was a member of the MyOcean Executive Committee.
  • Jan 2006 - Aug 2008: Simon represented the Met Office on the EUMETSAT ASCAT Science Advisory Group.