19 - 20 November 2025 | Esplanade Hotel Fremantle by Rydges, Western Australia
2025 Forum for Operational Oceanography

Program

The program below will be updated with any scheduling changes during the conference.

Wednesday, 19 November 2025

08.00 – 09:00 Conference Registration
Room: Sirius Room
09.00 – 09:20 Conference Introduction and Welcome to Country
09:20 – 10:00

Keynote Speaker

Sustainable Ocean Plan

Katrina Maguire (DCCEEW) – via video link

10:00 – 10:30 Morning Tea
Session 1
Sovereign Industry
Chair: Chris Diassinas
10:30 – 10:50 Generative AI and data assimilation for real-time ship route optimisation
Shane Keating, countercurrent.ai
10:50 – 11:10 Development of Ocean–Atmosphere Foundation Models
Justin Freeman, Flowershift
11:10 – 11:30 Ocean Data Collection and Sovereign Development
Sam Ward, BlueOcean MTS
11:30 – 11:50 Delivering coastal and ocean hazard information for the Australian Climate Service
Claire Spillman, BoM
11:50 – 12:10 Artificial Intelligence to improve operational forecasting, what is the key ingredient?
Geoffrey Wake, Oceancomm
12:10 – 13:00 Lunch
Session 2
Partnerships and collaborations across disciplines
Chair: Claire Grandison
13:00 – 13:20 TBC
13:20 – 13:40 Recent developments at ACCESS-NRI: from global to regional ocean modelling
Dr Helen Macdonald, ACCESS-NRI
13:40 – 14:00 Democratizing Coastal Ocean Observing Through Widespread, Low-Cost, High-Quality, Real-Time Ocean Data Collection
Moninya Roughan, UNSW
14:00 – 14:20 Establishing a coastal research infrastructure (CoastRI) for Australia
Michelle Heupel, IMOS
14:20 – 14:40 Interaction between Internal Tides and Waves: A Challenge in Predicting NWS Dynamics
Ivica Janekovic, UWA
14:40 – 15:10 Afternoon Tea
Session 3
Data: needs and gaps
Chair: Greg Williams
15:10 – 15:30 From the Ocean to the Cloud – Now and the Future
Mark Rehbein, IMOS
15:30 – 15:50 XBT real-time applications
Ashley Parker, CSIRO Environment
15:50 – 16:10 New in Data Collection
Michael Mitchell, Elysium EPL
16:10 – 17:00 Mini-panel on data sharing
18:00 – 21:00 Formal Dinner
Room: Pleiades Room

Speaker:
National Marine Science Strategy
Lyndon Llewellyn, The Australian Institute of Marine Science

Thursday, 20 November 2025

08.30 – 09:00 Conference Registration
Room: Sirius Room
09.00 – 09:40

Keynote Speaker

Event response: The 2025 WA marine heatwave

Arani Chandrapavan (DPIRD)

Session 4
Event Responses
Chair: Fabrice Jaine
09:40 – 10:00 Hydrodynamic model downscaling for spill trajectory forecasts in Singapore
David Wright, RPS
10:20 – 10:40 Operational oceanographic support during South Australia’s unprecedented Harmful Algal Bloom
Mark Doubell, SARDI
10:40 – 11:00 NSW marine heatwave response plans
Curtis Champion, NSW DPIRD Fisheries
11:00 – 11:30 Morning Tea
11:30 – 12:10 Mini-panel: Event response
12:10 – 13:00 Lunch
Session 5
Operational examples
Chair: Claire Spillman
13:00 – 13:20 Mixed Messages, Critical Choices: The last mile decision dilemma
James Taylor, BoM
13:20 – 13:40 Operational marine heatwave prediction from weeks to months to seasons
Grant Smith, BoM
13:40 – 14:00 Western Rock Lobster – A digital transformation journey
Chris King, Western Rock Lobster Fishery
14:00 – 14:20 Strategic Use of Index Insurance to Ensure Aquaculture Businesses Against Impacts from Marine Heatwaves
Jonathan Barratt, Celcius Pro
14:20 – 14:40 Using old statistics and new data to predict and characterise ocean currents at scales smaller than 100 km
Matt Rayson, UWA
14:40 – 15:10 Afternoon Tea
Session 6
Sailing through developments: News and Updates
Chair: Mark Baird
15:10 – 15:20 Building a Resilient Sea Level Monitoring Network in the Australian Antarctic Territories of the Southern Ocean
Karen Palmer, AAD
15:20 – 15:30 OceanMaps
Prasanth Divakaran
15:30 – 15:50 Surface Waves Working Group
Salman Saeed Khan, CSIRO
15:50 – 16:00 The updated CSIRO Atlas of Regional Seas (CARS) and CSIRO Ocean Data Archive (CODA)
Chris Chapman
16:00 – 16:10 Advancing Australia’s National Coastal Ocean Modelling Capability: The ANCOMS Implementation Plan and its potential role in national decision making.
Emlyn Jones, CSIRO
16:10 – 16:20 AusTemp
Pallavi Govekar, BoM
16:20 – 16:30 Summation and close
Claire Spillman and Mark Baird
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