PhD scholarship in Karlsruhe: Estimation of short-term extremes in air pollution and their drivers, Germany (DAAD scholarship)

We are currently looking for a PhD candidate for a research project on “Estimation of short term extremes in air pollution and their drivers” supervised by Hendrik Andersen, Jan Cermak and Vicky Fasen-Hartmann at KIT Graduate School Computational and Data Science (KCDS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The research focus is on developing a new data-driven approach to accurately predict extremes in urban air pollution from observation data, and to quantify the contributions of the various factors driving these extremes. Therefore, methods from extreme value statistics will be implemented in a machine-learning framework to estimate and predict air pollution extremes. As a starting point, we use Paris as a baseline city, where ML methods were successfully implemented to reproduce specified PM1 concentrations. This model architecture will be adapted and retrained on multi-city data from global air pollution hotspots, enabling generalization beyond the urban area of Paris. The project lies at the intersection of innovation in mathematics and meteorology. By combining extreme value theory with machine learning, it aims to advance the current state of the art in predicting air pollution extremes. The doctoral degree will be awarded in either Mathematics or Meteorology, depending on the candidate’s academic background. The successful candidate will receive a DAAD Graduate School Scholarship funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Further information: https://www.kcds.kit.edu/72.php Application deadline: April 30, 2026