Iman Soltanzadeh

Data & AI Scientist · Bonn, Germany

Iman Soltanzadeh

Powering the energy transition with AI and climate insight.

A Data & AI scientist with nearly 20 years in weather, climate and energy. I lead and spearhead AI initiatives for Europe’s energy networks, preparing the grid for the net-zero transition – and I build useful AI products, too.

Iman Soltanzadeh in front of a chalkboard full of equations.
Nearly 20 years
in weather, climate and energy data
PhD
Environmental science (meteorology), University of Tehran
Four continents
Asia, Oceania, Antarctica and Europe
01About

About: From the atmosphere to the grid.

I bridge the gap between complex environmental data and real-world solutions, working at the intersection of weather and climate science, AI and energy.

My path ran from numerical weather prediction in Tehran to fieldwork in Antarctica, from leading R&D at New Zealand’s national weather service to spearheading AI for Europe’s energy networks in Germany.

What drives me is using artificial intelligence to optimise energy systems, deepen our understanding of a changing climate, and deliver sustainable outcomes for business and the planet.

An automatic weather station on a guyed mast with wind and temperature sensors, the field team and snowmobiles around it on the Antarctic ice.
A field team in polar gear installing a weather station mast beside snowmobiles in poor visibility.
Three team members working behind a low wall of snow blocks on the Antarctic ice.
Yellow pyramid tents of the field camp on the ice, with mountains on the horizon.
Iman in polar gear on the Antarctic ice, with an emperor penguin standing a few metres away.
SNOWWEB field campaign, Antarctica – modelling katabatic winds and snow transport.
02AI & data science

AI and data science: AI for the net-zero energy transition.

Tailored strategies for complex data challenges – grounded in your goals, so every solution is data-driven and fits what you actually need.

  1. 01

    AI for Europe’s energy grid

    Leading and spearheading AI and data science initiatives that prepare Europe’s energy networks for net zero – from smart energy services to the grid of the future.

  2. 02

    AI weather models

    Machine-learning weather prediction – models trained on decades of atmospheric data that now match physics-based forecasts at a fraction of the cost – and what it changes for energy: larger ensembles, site-specific calibration and probabilistic forecasts the grid can act on.

  3. 03

    Renewable energy assessment & prediction

    Resource assessment and forecasting for wind and solar sites, built on boundary-layer and mesoscale meteorology, high-resolution models and refined statistics.

  4. 04

    AI agents & automation

    Designing AI agents and automated workflows with large language models, custom MCP servers and low-code orchestration – from research assistants to Echo, the scheduling assistant on this site.

AI in action

Agents and AI systems I have designed and run – on my own infrastructure and in the products of Agile With AI.

How I build them
  • Agents

    Multi-agent orchestration

    An orchestrating agent that delegates to specialised sub-agents for communication, scheduling, research and content production – each with its own tools, memory and language model – and reports back through a single conversational interface.

    Multi-agent · Tool use · Orchestration

  • Retrieval

    Agentic RAG knowledge base

    Documents from cloud storage are ingested and embedded automatically; the agent combines semantic search with SQL over structured data and maintains a persistent memory of every conversation.

    RAG · Vector search · SQL

  • Automation

    Customer-service copilot

    Classifies incoming requests and their sentiment, retrieves answers from a knowledge base with vector search and re-ranking, drafts replies, and routes each task to the most suitable hosted or private model.

    Classification · Re-ranking · Model routing

  • Infrastructure

    Self-hosted MCP servers

    Model Context Protocol servers that give any AI client one shared, governed toolset: web research, messaging, live data, and natural-language questions over a relational database.

    MCP · Text-to-SQL · Governance

  • Product

    On-device speech AI

    MeetingEcho transcribes meetings in around 100 languages, detects the spoken language sentence by sentence for live captions and writes notes with the model of your choice – with recording and transcription kept entirely on the device.

    Speech recognition · On-device · Privacy

  • Research

    Deep-research pipeline

    Decomposes a question into parallel searches, condenses the sources with several language models into structured, verifiable findings, and publishes the report to a shared knowledge workspace.

    Structured output · Multi-model · Verification

03Agile With AI

Agile With AI: Useful products, built with AI.

Alongside my day job I run Agile With AI, a small product studio. We take everyday problems, prototype quickly with AI, test with real people – and only release what genuinely helps.

  • In test · Mac

    MeetingEcho

    Records and transcribes meetings, dictates into any app and turns what colleagues say into language practice – all on your Mac, without a bot in the call.

  • In test · Email

    Akquiseradar

    Finds new public tenders for architects and engineers in their field and region, and sends only the ones that fit.

  • In the lab

    What’s next

    New ideas are being tested right now. They get shown when they are genuinely useful – not before.

Visit agilewithai.com
04Experience

Experience: Two decades, four continents.

  1. 2023 – now

    Data Science Manager

    E.ON Digital Technology · Germany

    I lead and spearhead AI and data science initiatives for Europe’s energy grid, preparing networks and smart energy services for the net-zero transition.

    I work with a brilliant team of data and AI scientists, engineers and analysts providing technical and scientific solutions for many aspects of energy and the energy transition.

  2. 2022 – 2023

    Scientific Advisor

    Freelance · Germany

    Technical and scientific solutions for next-generation numerical modelling, AI-based weather prediction models and cloud-based data science infrastructure, and support with environmental modelling requirements.

  3. 2019 – 2022

    Head of R&D

    MetService & MetraWeather · New Zealand

    Led operational and R&D work in numerical modelling, data science, satellite processing and AWS-based HPC; managed stakeholders and acted as product manager for modelling and data science.

    Core expert on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Expert Team on Aeronautical Meteorological Science.

  4. 2018 – 2019

    Senior Scientist

    MetService · New Zealand

    Led the numerical modelling team, advised renewable energy clients (wind and solar) on resource assessment and demand prediction, and moved an on-demand modelling system to the cloud.

  5. 2013 – 2018

    Scientist / Meteorological Developer

    MetService · New Zealand

    R&D on high-resolution numerical prediction; maintained and tuned NWP models and improved post-processing systems.

  6. 2011 – 2013

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    University of Canterbury · New Zealand

    Studied the climate of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (wind and energy fluxes) and modelled snow transport over Antarctic sea ice.

    Helped build weather and climate prediction tools on climate-change impacts for the wine industries of New Zealand and South Africa.

  7. 2006 – 2010

    Graduate Researcher

    Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorological Research Center · Iran

    Post-processing of ensemble prediction systems with Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA).

05Education

Education: Trained in the physics of the sky.

  1. 2011

    Ph.D. Environmental Science (Meteorology)

    Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran

    High-resolution numerical and statistical simulation of wind patterns and mesoscale circulations over an urban area near complex terrain, including pollution distribution.

  2. 2005

    M.Sc. Environmental Science (Meteorology)

    Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran

    Climate modelling and downscaling of climate scenarios: the orographic influence of the Zagros Mountains on the climate of their leeward side.

  3. 2002

    B.Sc. Aviation

    Air University

    Graduated as an air traffic controller.

  4. Publications

    Peer-reviewed work on numerical weather prediction, Antarctic climate, wind and ensemble forecasting. The full list is on Google Scholar.

06Writing

Writing: Notes on climate, energy and AI.

All writing

07Contact

Contact: Have an idea or a project in mind?

I’d love to hear about it. Echo, my assistant, can pass on a message or find a time for a call – or connect with me on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn