Ammar Alvi

Ammar Alvi

Ammar Alvi
Cohort 6
PHD RESEARCHER

Ammar Alvi

Weather, Vector-Borne Diseases & Resilience in Brazil

Background

MSc Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning; BSc Computer Science

PhD

Weather, Vector-Borne Diseases & Resilience in Brazil

My project predicts how climate variability and extreme weather events influence the spread of vector-borne diseases in Brazil. It sits at the intersection of climate science, public health, and artificial intelligence, with the aim of developing a Dengue forecasting system.

I integrate national health records (SINAN), satellite-based Earth observations, and seasonal weather forecasts to build a dataset which is used to train range of models, including Bayesian approaches, Gaussian neural networks, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, and ensemble methods, to capture uncertainty and complex temporal patterns. The overarching goal is to improve accuracy and increase forecast lead times.

Supervisors

  • Lead Supervisor
    Theo Economou
    Mathematics & Statistics, University of Exeter
  • Co-Supervisor
    Scott Hosking
    The Alan Turing Institute
  • Co-Supervisor
    Hywel T.P. Williams
    Computer Science, University of Exeter
  • Co-Supervisor
    Alejandro Coca Castro
    The Alan Turing Institute

External Partners

  • Leo Bastos - Programa de Computação Científica (PROCC), Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil