Modeling turbulent flow in the urban environment

Funded PhD position with contract is opening at the Department of Atmospheric Physics at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic aiming at modeling turbulence in urban environment.

Reference Code for the application: DCU25–3

Euraxess: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/316361

Description: The successful candidate will join the CFD modeling group and participate in the current research projects such as OP JAK “Georisks” CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004605 and TAČR ARAMIS SS02030031. The focus will be on the application of the LES model PALM for studies of the urban micro-climate and air quality. The student will be involved in the model development and evaluation of model performance in very high-resolution simulations for the city of Prague. Further, the student will contribute to the applications of the PALM model for the production of scenarios of thermal comfort and air quality. The candidate is expected to have a background in atmospheric sciences and numerical modeling.

Specific tasks:

• Preparation of input data and running PALM model simulations
• Post-processing and evaluation of the simulation results
• Preparation of sensitivity tests and scenario simulations for Prague and other cities (e.g. influence of urban greenery on heat stress and air quality, traffic emission scenarios, etc.), running and evaluation of the simulations
• Development of the model and supporting tools (static driver, dynamic driver) 

Within the project, the student will collaborate with other Czech research institutes (e.g. Czech Academy of Sciences). The Ph.D. study of the candidates will be fully funded, partly from the mentioned project and partly as a regular monthly stipendium, together making about net 1500 EUR/month income (the stipendium is gradually increasing during the study – for details about the phd studies at the department of atmospheric physics, please visit: https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/physicsphd/f8/program-overview

Requirements:

• Master-of-Science-equivalent degree in meteorology and/or environmental physics with fulfilled courses of atmospheric chemistry and physics
• The candidate should have good to very good skills in Unix / Linux scripting and programming skills in Python and Fortran (preferably with HPC experience)
• Strong communication in English language (spoken and written)
• Willingness to interact with an interdisciplinary science community
• A creative mind-set for scientific research

Assets:

• Previous experience in high-resolution modeling including LES or DNS models (e.g. PALM) is a great asset

Application: Please send your application by March 31, 2025 to kfa@matfyz.cuni.cz

Please include:

• Academic CV and a pdf of your diplomas including (link to the) the diploma thesis
• List of course topics related to meteorology, air quality, climate modelling or atmospheric physics
• Specification of programming and language skills
• List of publications (if any)
• List of research projects (if any)
• Statement of research interests and career goals, indicating why you are interested in the position
• List of at least two references: names, phone numbers, and email

After the selection of the candidate (during April) and the approval of the supervisor of the phd project, an official application has to be submitted to the faculty (to be specified later with the selected candidate).

Information on deadlines, how to apply and what is required in general can be found at Application.

Further information about our department can be found here.