Dr Ioana Colfescu: Multidisciplinary and being fearless in the face of change

Victoria Herd

Thursday 12 March 2026

“Academia is a world that goes beyond my data analysis.”

Ioana Colfescu’s academic journey has taken her across countries, disciplines and career stages, shaped by a willingness to embrace change and continue learning throughout her career.

Born and raised in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, Ioana developed a strong foundation in Mathematics and Fluid Dynamics at the University of Bucharest. She went on to complete a PhD in Climate Dynamics at George Mason University in the United States, before moving to the UK to join the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), where she held positions at the Universities of Edinburgh, Leeds and Oxford.

In 2024 she became a Principal Research Fellow in Climate and Machine Learning, leading a new NCAS site at the University of St Andrews. She is now employed at the University on a research-only contract.

Ioana’s path to her current role reflects a long-term strategy built around continuous learning, developing collaborations and building a diverse research portfolio. Alongside supervising students and securing research grants, she has also taken on leadership roles within NCAS. She is currently leading the development of the centre’s new Digital Atmosphere strategy, a programme focused on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

One defining feature of Ioana’s career has been its multidisciplinary nature.

Her decision to expand her expertise into machine learning was partly inspired by her students.

“As my master’s students became more interested in AI-assisted coding and scientific insight, I realised I wouldn’t be able to keep up with supervising future cohorts without understanding machine learning myself,” she explains.

Although beginning something entirely new mid-career felt risky, she chose to embrace the challenge.

“Many times, learning has been almost a way of addressing issues; it’s like renewing yourself through hard times and it’s really, really good.”

That decision led her to take an unusual step: temporarily moving ‘backwards’ in terms of seniority to pursue a postdoctoral role at the University of Oxford, where she could develop her expertise in machine learning.

The move came during the pandemic, a period she describes as professionally stagnant but also motivating her to try something different. Yet the experience was not without its challenges. Having moved away from her partner and wider support network, and working in a new field where she was no longer the expert, she found the early months particularly isolating.

Returning to the role of a beginner after years as an established researcher required humility and resilience.

“How she describes overcoming these difficulties shows the importance of reaching out for support. With encouragement from mentors and colleagues at both NCAS and Oxford, she began to see mistakes not as setbacks but as an essential part of learning and growth.

“When someone asks me ‘how do you do it all’, I say: you don’t always,” she says. “I was lucky to have line managers and mentors who supported me when I made mistakes and helped me learn from them. For sure, I have learned to apologise and fix things.”

For Ioana, success is closely tied to supporting others in the same way she has been supported throughout her career.

Mentors have played a defining role in her journey. She still keeps in touch with her mathematics teacher from elementary school, now 95, who first inspired her interest in the subject. Later, guidance from her PhD supervisor, the Director of NCAS and her NCAS mentor helped shape her career and supported the development of the NCAS St Andrews initiative.

Working with students has also been a constant source of motivation.

She currently supervises both Masters and PhD research projects and recently began co-authoring a paper with her PhD supervisor and a student she supervised during her time in Oxford.

“It’s wonderful to think that the paper brings together three generations of scientists,” she says.

Looking back, Ioana says the achievement she is most proud of is simply continuing to move forward despite the challenges and changes along the way.

This profile was created as part of an action from the 2024-2028 Athena Swan action plan. It is part of a series of profiles with women academics that highlight varied career routes and trajectories, and give greater transparency around career progression for female staff.