Geo- und Umweltnaturwissenschaften

Team of the working group climatology and the biosphere

Portrait shot of Prof. Dr. Kira Rehfeld who is smiling into the camera.

Prof. Dr. Kira Rehfeld

Professor of Climatology and the Biosphere and leader of the research group.

Portrait shot of Dr. Markus Maisch smiling into the camera.

Dr. Markus Maisch

coordinates the group's lab activities and investigates water isotope variability in local and regional precipitation.

Postdocs

Headshot of Armelle Ballian against a black backdrop smiling into the camera.

Armelle Ballian

combines stable isotope analysis of water samples with the active monitoring of cave systems to investigate environmental processes in her work.

Portrait shot of Dr. Jean-Philipp Baudouin who is smiling into the camera.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Baudouin

investigates climate variability during the last glacial cycle in the PalMod project.

Headshot of Julia Brugger smiling into the camera in front of various plants.

Dr. Julia Brugger

explores the Earth system of the past using climate and vegetation models with the aim of better understanding the future Earth system.

Headshot of Sebastian Franz smiling into the camera in front of a stone wall.

Dr. Sebastian Franz

works in the ICAWaR project on the analysis and development of sustainable water resource management.

The photography shows a head shot of Helene Hoffmann smiling into the camera.

Dr. Helene Hoffmann

analyzes Antarctic ice cores from a high-resolution perspective to understand palaeoclimate variability.

Headshot of Melanie Nagel smiling into the camera.

PD Dr. Melanie Nagel

leads the research project ‘ICAWaR - Improving climate adaptation policies for water resilience’ and coordinates the project ‘Carbon emission information for local climate action’ (in Heidelberg).

Portrait shot of Dr. Nabeela Sadaf smiling into the camera.

Dr. Nabeela Sadaf 

works on modelling climate variability (temporarily on leave).

Portrait shot of Dr. Yana Savytska.

Dr. Yana Savytska

works on atmospheric CO2 monitoring and the impact of vegetation changes.

 

Portrait shot of Elisa Ziegler smiling into the camera.

Dr. Elisa Ziegler

investigates changes in surface climate variability under warming and their dependence on factors such as background state or temporal and spatial scales.

PhD Students

The photography shows a head shot of Moritz Adam smiling into the camera.

Moritz Adam, M.Sc.

investigates whether and how effects of carbon dioxide removal on the Earth system and land use interact.

Tyler Houston, M.Sc.

explores vegetation feedbacks and their interactions with negative emissions technologies using coupled Earth system models.

Photography of Yingxin Li standing in front of a metal railing and smiling at the camera. In the background is a white castle with towers in a landscape of fields, lakes and settlements.

Yingxin Li, M.Sc.

explores dynamical origins of weather extremes such as heat waves and heavy precipitation in the middle latitudes.

Portrait shot of Muriel Racky smiling into the camera.

Muriel Racky, M.Sc.

investigates how choices in climate model tuning procedures impact the resulting climatologies.

Portrait shot of Arya Samanta smiling into the camera.

Arya Samanta, M.Sc.

models the climatic consequences of large-scale surface modifications for energy harvest and carbon dioxide removal.

Tom Schürmann, M.Sc.

investigates the coupling of anthropogenic land conversion and Earth system dynamics, incorporating assessments of model validity.

Guests

Portrait shot of Dr. Valdir Novello smiling into the camera.

Prof. Dr. Valdir F. Novello

works on isotopes, paleoclimate, speleothems, and other cave studies. Other research interests are the South American Monsoon, archeology, and paleomagnetism.

Portrait shot of Dr. Nils Weitzel smiling into the camera.

JProf. Dr. Nils Weitzel

develops statistical methods for environmental data and investigates the spatio-temporal structure of climate and vegetation variability.

Students and Student Assistants

Malinda Edelmann, B.A.

is a political scientist working in the ICAWaR project on discourse network analysis.

Hendrik Jansen, B.Sc.

uses a deep learning model Earth System Model (DLESyM) to analyze the simulated climate and its variability.

Desirée Lo Triglia, B.Sc.

works on the cave monitoring in the Swabian alps.

Jakob Peschel, M.Sc.

applies AI-based regionalization to paleoclimate simulations to test, among other things, whether this can improve the comparison of proxy data and models.

Sara Pujiula Buhl, B.Sc.

Sarina Vitillo, B.Sc.

quantifies inter-annual variability of the Hadley cell and mid-latitude circulation metrics. In particular, she focuses on their relationship and whether it holds across different climate states.

Leonie Willems, B.Sc.

is a geographer working in the ICAWaR project on discourse network analysis.

Yannick Wolfhard, B.Sc.

analyzes the relationship between oxygen isotope ratios (18O/16O) in precipitation and karst runoff in the Swabian Alb, and in a speleothem (stalactite) from the study area, which captured the climate history of the last 200 years.

Miriam Zeitler, M.A.

is a political scientist working in the ICAWaR project on cross-impact-balance-analysis.

Alumni

Tian Gao, M.Sc. Geoecology (2025)

Judith Baum, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2025)

Katja Labermeyer, M.Sc. Applied and Environmental Geoscience (2025)

Emilia Weißenborn, BSc. Environmental Science (2025)

Jonas Babel, B.Sc. Geoecology (2025)

Fifame Edwige Akpoly, visiting researcher (2024-2025)

Mereth Kleikamp, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2025)

Hana Jeram, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2025)

Björn Riebandt, M.Sc. Applied and Environmental Geoscience (2024)

Laura Braschoß, research assistant (2024), now PhD student at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Daniel Boateng, Ph.D. Environmental Science (2024)

Ari Heidtmann, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2024)

Frederik Kolb, B.Sc. Geoecology (2024)

Theresa Rieger, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2024)

Faith Forry, M.Sc. Applied and Environmental Geoscience (2024), co-supervision with Dr. Steffen Seitz

Ratchanah Vejayan, M.Sc. Applied and Environmental Geoscience (2024)

Yasmin Ruf, B.Sc. Geographie (2024), co-supervision with Prof. Yvonne Oelmann

Felix Ewen, B.Sc. Environmental Science (2024)

Fabian Launer, student assistant (2024)

Johannes Grabenstein, M.Sc. Physics (2023)

Irene Trombini, M.Sc. Physics (2023), now PhD student at the University of Bologna (Italy)

Nina van Hasz, B.Sc. Geoecology (2023)

Daniele Voglis, M.Sc. Physics (2023)

Magdalena Ritzau, M.Sc. Applied Environmental Geoscience (2023)

Paola Serrano Alemán, internship (2023)

Laura Fink, M.Sc. Physics (2023)

Jana Mayer, student assistant (2023)

Stephan Sprinz, B.Sc. Physics (2023)

Mathurin Choblet, M.Sc. Physics (2023), now PhD student at the University of Liège (Belgium)

Dr. Janica C. Bühler, PhD student (2023), now at BMWE (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Germany)

Dr. Beatrice Ellerhoff, PhD student (2023), now at the German Weather Service (DWD)

Jakob Kruse, Wiss. Mitarbeiter (2023)

Felix Pollak, MSc. Physics (2023), now a PhD student at the Université Grenoble Alpes (France)

Leoni Rath, MSc. Physics (2023)

Sonja Spälter, BSc. Environmental Sciences (2023) 

Mitja Ziegler,  BSc. Environmental Sciences (2023)

Dr. Mathieu Casado, Postdoc (2021-2022), currently CNRS researcher at LSCE (France)

Dr. Olga Erokhina, Postdoc (2021-2022)

Laura Braschoß, MSc. Physics (2022)

Jonathan Wider, MSc. Physics (2022), now PhD student at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig (Germany), co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Köthe, IWR, Heidelberg, Germany

Patrizia Schoch, MSc. Physics (2022), now PhD student at Leipzig University (Germany)

Maybritt Schillinger, MSc. Mathematics (2022), now PhD student at ETH Zürich (Switzerland)

Jonah Mende, BSc. Phyics (2022)

Franka Neumann, BSc. Physics (2022), now PhD student at Grenoble Alpes University and the University of Tasmania in the AUFRANDE (The Australia-France Network of Doctoral Excellence) program

Eva Lüdke, BSc. Geoecology (2022)

Anna Sommani, MSc. Physics (2021), now PhD student at Heidelberg University (Germany)

Dr. Christian Wirths, M.Sc. Physics (2021), now postdoc at the University of Bern (Switzerland)

Dr. Oliver Mehling, M.Sc. Physics (2021), now postdoc at Utrecht University (Netherlands)

Claudia Schiavini, (2021), Erasmus-internship in STACY project

Maximilian May, MSc. Physics (2021), now PhD student at Heidelberg University (Germany)

Julian Schäfer, MSc. Geoarchaeology (2021)

Yannick Heiser, BSc. Physics (2021)

Simon Rosenkranz (2020), internship in STACY project

Shirin Ermis, BSc. Physics (2020), now PhD student at the University of Oxford (UK)

Nadine Theisen, BSc. Physics (2020), co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Köthe, IWR, Heidelberg, Germany

Moritz Kirschner, MSc. Physics (2020)

Dr. Carla Roesch, MSc. Physics (2020), now PhD student at the University of Edinburgh (UK)

Benjamin Schmiedel, BSc. Physics (2019) results and new developments here