March 2020

Patrick Bigler is a new PhD with the Climate Economics: Energy, Technological Change and International Cooperation group. He graduated with a master in Applied Economic Analysis at the University of Berne. His master thesis was about the impact of labor clauses in preferential trade agreements on bilateral investment. During his PhD he will conduct research in the field of energy economics.

François Yves Burgay is a new Postdoc with the Analytical Chemistry Research group. He gained a master in Environmental Chemistry (Università degli Studi di Torino) as well as in Science and Management of Climate Change (Ca’ Foscari Università di Venezia) and did e a PhD entitled “Development of new analytical techniques to perform iron speciation studies in ice cores and snow” at Ca’ Foscari Università as well. During his Postdoc, he will determine the chemical composition and sources of organic aerosols in the pre-industrial and industrial atmosphere by analysing molecular markers in ice cores from Europe and Central Asian Altai, applying sensitive liquid chromatography coupled to electronspray onization ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry.

Marvin Bundo is a new PhD with the Climate Change and Health group. He did his master in Health Sciences at the UMIT-University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall, Austria. Before that he gained a master in General Medicine from the Medical University Tirana, Albania.

Evan de Schrijver is a new PhD with the Climate Change and Health group. He holds a bachelor in Global Public Health from Leiden University College The Hague in the Netherlands and pursued a MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His PhD project is on Climate Change Adaptation and Future Health Impacts. The aim of this study is to develop a methodological framework to identify the main drivers of adaptation to climate change, and provide high-resolution projections on climate change impacts in terms of the temperature-mortality association.

Arthur Lopes Jacob is a new PhD with the Climate and Environmental Economics group. He did a master in Environmental Engineering at the Universidad Europea Del Atlantico (Spain) with a thesis entitled “Urban solid waste management from the perspective of the solid waste management index (WMI) in the municipalities of the state of Sao Paulo”. The title of his PhD project is on the effect of droughts in the African Region.

Fessehaye Mussie is a new Postdoc with the Climatology group. He gained a bachelor on Soil and Water Conservation from the University of Asmara, Eritrea in 1997 and a master in Agrometeorology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He then did a PhD at the University of Bern under the research title “Fog as a natural resource in the eastern escarpment of Eritrea”. His current research is on “Association of Eritrean highland precipitation with global sea surface temperature and atmospheric circulation”.

Frerk Pöppelmeier is a new Postdoc with the Earth System Modelling: Climate Dynamics group. He holds a master in Physics from the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and obtained his PhD in Earth Sciences, also from the University of Heidelberg. In his PhD thesis, he reconstructed the water masses of the last ice age in the North Atlantic using neodymium isotopes measured on marine sediment cores. He will now work on the Horizon 2020 project TiPES: Tipping Points in the Earth System with the Bern3D model and use a multi-tracer approach to quantify the ocean fingerprints of abrupt climate change. He will also collaborate with the Institute of Geology and implement and investigate novel paleoceanographic tracers in the Bern3D model.

Anna Schmid is a new PhD with the Climate Economics: Energy, Technological Change and International Cooperation group. She did a master in Applied Economic Analysis with Special Qualification in Regional Economic Development at the University of Bern.

Marcio dos Reis Martins is a new Postdoc with the Climate and Agriculture group. He gained a bachelor in Agronomy and a master in Crop Science at Sao Paolo State University, UNESP in Brazil where he also did his PhD in Crop Science in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a department of the government of Canada. Before joining the OCCR, he did a Postdoc at Embrapa Agrobiology, a Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation under the aegis of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply.

Antoine Thévenaz is a new PhD with the Paleoecology group. He holds a master in Climate Sciences (Thesis: “Constraining the vertical particle export during the last glacial cycle in Southern Indian Ocean sediment cores”.) from the University of Bern. His PhD project is called “Reconstructing the climate and environment of the Southern Balkans during the Neolithic in relation to land use change in the cradle of European farming”.

Lieveke van Vugt is a new PhD with the Paleoecology group. She did a master in Climate Sciences at the University of Bern with a thesis entitled “12,000 years of vegetation dynamics influenced by climate and land use at Lago Inferiore del Sangiatto, Italian Lepontine Alps”. Her PhD thesis is called “EXPLO - Exploring the interactions between climate, vegetation, fire and society during the Neolithic in Northern Greece”.