Pin numpy version to prevent tests from failing

[rmanaem]

Our test workflow is failing

and it seems to be due to the major version bump in numpy: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78634235/numpy-dtype-size-changed-may-indicate-binary-incompatibility-expected-96-from

See affected PRs: #317, #318, #319

To resolve this issue, we will pin the numpy version to the latest version 1 (1.24.6) on a separate branch and then merge that branch into those PRs. This way there will be no conflict and there will be no need for a review on a separate PR that would otherwise be made for this issue.

[rmanaem]

Closing this since the issue has been addressed and the PRs were merged with green status on the test workflow.