Two Fully Funded PhD Positions in Atmospheric Physics and AI at the University of Lausanne University of Lausanne in Switzerland

Two fully funded PhD positions are open in the DAWN group at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) at the intersection of atmospheric physics and artificial intelligence.

The positions are hosted within the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics and UNIL’s Expertise Center for Climate Extremes. The research theme is broad and flexible: candidates are encouraged to propose creative, feasible project ideas that connect their interests with the group’s expertise in atmospheric science and scientific machine learning.

Research topics include aerosol-cloud interactions, air-sea and land-atmosphere interactions, atmospheric convection and moist turbulence, predictability and forecasting across timescales, cloud-radiation interactions, cloud physics, post-processing and downscaling of weather forecasts and climate projections, tropical meteorology, and weather and climate extremes. On the AI side, the group is interested in causal ML, equation learning, generative modeling, uncertainty quantification, robustness to non-stationarity, hybrid physics-AI modeling, interpretable ML, physics-constrained ML, foundation models for weather and climate, scale-aware and adaptive AI, scientific benchmarks, and sustainable AI.

Both positions are funded for up to 5 years and include salary, research travel, equipment, open-access publication support when appropriate, and access to UNIL’s high-performance CPU/GPU computing facilities. The annual salary is approximately CHF 54k in year 1 and rises to about CHF 63k in year 5, subject to satisfactory yearly reviews.

Eligibility highlights include a master’s degree (or equivalent expected before the start date) in a quantitative field such as atmospheric science, climate science, physics, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, machine learning, or data science. Applicants should have strong scientific programming and data-analysis skills, ideally in Python, experience with scientific datasets or large-scale model output, and a solid foundation in applied mathematics and/or physics. Strong English communication skills are required. Position 1 also requires French; Position 2 requires English only.

Application materials include a CV, degree certificates and transcripts, two references with names/affiliations/emails, one lead-authored research report, a short statement on research and teaching/mentoring experience, and a 500-word personal statement describing a creative PhD project idea. Applications are submitted through the official UNIL portal. The first deadline is 2026-06-15 for Position 1, and the second deadline is 2026-09-15 for Position 2.

For questions, contact [email protected].