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[Switzerland] PhD student position in air quality modeling

The Paul Scherrer Institut is a centre for multi-disciplinary research and one of the world’s leading user laboratories. With its 1200 employees it belongs as an autonomous institution to the Swiss ETH domain and concentrates its activities on solid-state research and material sciences, elementary particle and astrophysics, energy and environmental research as well as on biology and medicine.

The Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry (LAC) is engaged in air quality and climate research by field studies, smog chamber experiments and chemical transport models.

We are offering a PhD Student position in the field of Air quality modeling. The chemical composition of particulate matter was recently measured and analyzed in several field campaigns at different locations in unprecedented detail. This provides a unique opportunity to evaluate 3-dimensional photochemical models including emissions, meteorological transport, gasphase and aerosol chemistry.


The challenges are on the one hand to get the boundary layer meteorological processes right on the other hand to get the emissions right. Recent research has shown that one also needs to revisit the assumptions concerning the formation processes leading to secondary organic aerosols.

The project will focus on aerosol formation processes in Switzerland and Europe. An intensive collaboration is planned with another PhD student focusing on meteorology and with a Canadian research group. A competitive Salary will be available.

Your tasks
Use the meteorological models MM5 and/or the Alpine Model (aLMo) in combination with the chemical transport model CAMx in various configurations
Improve the gaseous emissions, e.g. concerning biogenic sesqui-terpene emissions
Improve the primary aerosol emissions (especially from domestic wood burning)
Use and/or develop new schemes to represent the secondary organic aerosol formation in an appropriate manner (2)
Test and evaluate the model versus various available and new data sets
Present the results at workshops, conferences and in peer-reviewed journals

Your profile

You have a master/diploma degree in atmospheric science, meteorology, physics, chemistry or environmental science. Ideally, you already have some experience in meteorological or air quality modeling. Programming and computer skills are crucial. Good communication skills in English are required and in German beneficial.

We are looking forward to your application

Sebnem Andreani and André Prévôt
Paul Scherrer Institut
Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry
CH- 5232 Villigen-PSI
Switzerland

Please send your application to:
sebnem.andreani {a - t } psi.ch

Visit the official website for further information.

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