The climate needs bright minds. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. It is one of the world‘s leading research institutions in its field and offers natural and social scientists from around the world an inspiring environment for excellent interdisciplinary research.

For the BMBF-funded project SLICE: "Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Climate Extremes" and the project funded by the Leibniz society ENGAGE: "Economic Growth Impacts of Climate Change" PIK is offering, starting on 01.06.2019, a

Postdoc Position in modeling of climate damages (m/f/d)
(Position number: RD3-Postdoc Position-19-2019)

The position is funded until 31.10.2021. Remuneration is in accordance with German public tariff scheme (TV-L Brandenburg), salary group E 13. This is a 100% position with a weekly working time of 40 hours per week. The position can be filled on a part-time basis.

The SLICE project - partnering the Ifo Institute for Economic Research (Munich), Climate Analytics (Berlin), and the Institute for Environmental Decisions of the ETH Zurich / MeteoSwiss (Zurich, Switzerland) - aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the economic costs of climate extremes such as floods, tropical cyclones, heatwaves, wildfires, or droughts by combining empirical methods with dynamic modeling from the household to the macroeconomic level.

The successful candidate will employ statistical and econometric methods to study historical and future economic damages from climate extremes and their respective drivers in terms of hazard characteristics and socioeconomic exposure and vulnerability as well as their impact on long-term socioeconomic development. This will involve assembling, processing, and analyzing large sets of gridded climate impact and socioeconomic data, the construction of calibrated damage functions, the development of dynamic models, and performing risk assessments under various future scenarios.

Key responsibilities:

• Conduct independent and high-level research on modeling of climate damages by applying and extending the open-source economics of climate adaptation toolbox climada
• Write and publish articles in peer-reviewed journals that highlight findings from the research project and present research findings at international conferences and workshops
• Supervise PhD / Master students working on related topics
• Contribute to the project‘s public outreach and the interaction with relevant stakeholders

Requirements:

• a PhD degree in Environmental or Resource Economics, Physics, Mathematics or in a related field
• profound expertise in object-oriented programming, preferably with Python or another high-level language (e.g., C++); familiarity with Unix like environments, shell programming and version control systems (e.g., Git)
• experience in software development is a strong asset
• strong analytical and organisational skills and ability to work reliably and independently
• profound expertise in statistics and data science (e.g., NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, scikit-learn)
• a first expertise in climate impact assessments or risk assessment is an advantage
• team-oriented attitude with strong communications skills in oral and written English

We offer:

• an inspiring, international, and interdisciplinary work environment in one of the world‘s leading research institutes on climate change impacts
• high-impact of your own research through publications in renowned international journals
• opportunities for cooperation with PIK‘s national and international network of leading climate and economic research institutes
• a stimulating working environment in an internationally recognized research institute on Potsdam´s beautiful, historic Telegrafenberg campus, a short commuting distance from Berlin
• a collective pay scheme and associated benefits

PIK seeks to increase the share of women in scientific positions and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. In cases of equal qualification and within the given legal scope, women will be given preference. Applications by persons with a migration background are expressly encouraged. Applications of disabled persons with equal qualifications will be regarded favourably. PIK also encourages applications by parents returning from parental leave.

Application documents should comprise a letter of motivation including research interests, a full CV, relevant certificates including grades, contact details of two referees, and a sample of your work (e.g., your PhD thesis, a journal publication, working program code, or an open-source software project (e.g, on GitHub).