Congratulations to David Fairbairn on the successful outcome of his EngD viva this morning (Thursday 9 January). The title of his thesis is “Comparing Variational and Ensemble Data Assimilation Methods for Numerical Weather Prediction“, supervised by Andrew Lorenc (Met Office and Visiting Professor at Surrey), Lucia Elghali (CES, Surrey) and Ian Roulstone. David’s examiners were Sue Hughes (CEE, Surrey), Stephen English (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) and Peter-Jan van Leeuwen (University of Reading).