March 2025

General News

Past Events

Upcoming Events

People

Publications

 

General News

OCCR Advisory Board Meeting 10-12 September 2025

The tentative schedule for your information

All OCCR Members are warmly invited to participate in the 2025 meeting of the OCCR Advisory Board The main event is the OCCR Plenary Meeting on Thursday 11 September 2025 14-17 h. Please save that date! The tentative schedule for your information (to be confirmed) is on the left side.

New members in the Scientific Committee

The Scientific Committee of the OCCR has two new members: Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera (representative of the Faculty of Medicine) and Olivia Romppainen (representative of the MobiliarLab and the endowed professorships).

Work in the Research Clusters has started

Research at the OCCR has been organised into six thematic clusters and two platforms (technology, methods) last year.  The first meetings within these clusters have now taken place, with more to follow in the coming weeks and months. The clusters will take centre stage at the meeting of the Adivsory Board at the beginning of September.

New research group

The OCCR has a new research group. It is called Global Biogeochemical Modelling and is led by Frerk Pöppelmeier. The group is mainly concerned with the reconstruction of ocean circulation and climate change during the Quaternary.

ENLIGHT Calls 2025

From April 2025, the curtain will rise for the second round of ENLIGHT Calls! Whether you're a professor, lecturer, Postdoc, or PhD student, this is your chance to turn your innovative ideas into reality and to take a first step towards long-term collaboration with our ENLIGHT partners in research and education. 

  • ENLIGHT Thematic Networks (ETN) are interdisciplinary, long-term networks involving at least three ENLIGHT partner universities cooperating with local stakeholders. 
  • The ENLIGHT Future-proof Incubator Grant supports bottom-up initiatives to develop learning formats on all three levels of study (Bachelor, Master and PhD). This year a focus will be given to joint programs.
  • ENLIGHT+ aims to support initiatives that make the university campus greener, more inclusive or create connections to the other ENLIGHT partners in various ways.

The ENLIGHT coordinators at the University of Bern offer an information event for interested applicants on April 8, 2025.

Improving climate models with historical data

Various OCCR researchers are involved in a major European project which has just started and combines climate modelling with paleo data. The project has received a Horizon grant of 15 million euros and is called “Past to Future: towards fully paleo-informed future climate projections.” The leading house of the Past-to-Future (P2F) project is Utrecht University.

Successful Drilling Campaign in Antarctica

drilling in Antarctica

The fourth Antarctic campaign of the “Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice” project, funded by the European Commission, has achieved a historic milestone for climate science. An international team of researchers with significant participation from the Oeschger Centre has drilled a 2,800-meter-long old ice core. This is the first core that covers at least 1.2 Myr of stratified ice, i.e. 400,000 years more than the EPICA ice core and the first ice core covering the Mid-Pleistocene Transition.

It is likely that the core contains even older ice, but detailed lab measurements are necessary to confirm. OCCR members who took part in this season’s drilling campaign were Barbara Seth and Lison Soussaintjean (Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores group).
Read the press release on the successful drilling campaign.

NamCore ICDP drilling project

NamCore ICDP drilling project team

In early February, Aliisa Laakonen, Camille Thomas and Hendrik Vogel (Sedimentary Geochemistry group) spent 10 days at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Science, at the Huairou Science City, near Beijing, China for the first core opening party of the NamCore ICDP drilling project.

During this stay, the OCCR team and international collaborators opened, described, and subsampled more than 500 core sections providing a first glimpse into the promising sedimentary archive of monsoon-westerly interactions on the Tibetan Plateau. In summer 2024 the project had retrieved sediment drill cores totalling more than 1000 m and extending to depths below lake floor in excess of 500 m at Lake Nam Co in Tibet at an altitude of 4’700 masl. Funding for this research is provided through the SNSF Sinergia project DIGESTED.

NamCore ICDP drilling project

The Communications Officer of the OCCR, Kaspar Meuli, will retire at the end of September 2025. The search for a successor is underway. The position was recently advertised.

Past Events

RIMMA2025

On 28 - 31 January 2025 the International Conference on Forecasting, Preparedness, Warning, and Response - RIMMA2025 took place at the University of Bern.
See a selection of conference impressions, blogs as well as presentations and reports.

European Storm Workshop

On 5 - 7 February 2025 the 10th Workshop on European Storms took place at the University of Bern. As in previous edition the workshop brought together scientists from dynamical meteorology and climatology as well as stakeholders from the insurance and engineering industries to share recent research ideas. This year's edition of the workshop was attended by more representatives of the insurance industry than ever before.

Upcoming Events

Mobiliar Lab Spring Event

The traditional Mobiliar Lab Spring Event is entitled “Prävention und Elementarschadenversicherung: vom Hochwasser 2005 zu den Herausforderungen des Klimawandels“, it takes place in Bern on 19 May 2025.
For details see the website of the event.

D.A.CH 2025

The D.A.CH 2025 takes shape: The program with sessions and keynote speakers is out now. On the conference website you will also find information on intriguing side events (excursions, conference dinner, public talk). Regular rates apply until 15 April.
D.A.CH is a triannual conference on Meteorology, Climatology and related topics, under the auspices of the German, Austrian and Swiss Societies for Meteorology (DMG; ÖGM; SGM). The DACH 2025 is hosted by the Oeschger Centre and will take place at the ExWi building, University of Bern, from Monday, 23 to Friday, 27 June 2025.

2. Berner Klimarechtstagung

The second Bern Climate Law Conference (in German) will take place at the University of Bern on 30 October 2025. Topic: Climate protection and grey emissions. Save the date!

ContaSed 2025

The 3rd International Conference on Contaminated Sediments ContaSed 2025 will take place at University of Bern 2 – 4 September 2025. For details see the conference website.

Hans Sigrist Symposium: Climate Justice: A Framework for Safe Boundaries of the Earth System

The Hans Sigrist Prize 2025 Symposium will take place at the University of Bern on Friday, 5 December 2025. This one-day Symposium will feature the Hans Sigrist Prize Lecture by the Laureate 2025, accompanied by high profile keynote lectures in the field of essential science for climate legislation and litigation, climate law, climate ethics and Earth System justice.
Announcement and registration follow in April/May 2025. 
Save the date!

Swiss Climate Summer School 2026: Climate Variability across Space and Time

The Swiss Climate Summer School 2026 will take place 30 August to 4 September 2026 in Grindelwald. Save the date! The announcement and call will be open in September 2025. 

Plenary meeting

The date of the next OCCR Plenary Meeting has been changed, it will take place on Thursday 11 September 2025 14-17 h. Save the date! Programme and registration will be made available in due time.

People

Ana Vicedo appointed as Associate Professor

Ana Vicedo

The Executive Board of the University of Bern has appointed Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera to the professorship for climate impact and public health in inhabited areas. Ana has headed the Climate Change and Health group at the University of Bern since 2019, which is based at the OCCR and the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine. The new professorship was established thanks to the support of la Mobilière (read the press release).

The professorship (Extraordinarius) is endowed with a total of two million Swiss francs and sheds light on an important aspect of climate change that has only been researched to a limited extent in Switzerland to date. Read the profile story on Ana entitled “Busy specialist for heat and health” on the OCCR website.

Claus Beisbart appointed as Full Professor

Claus Beisbart

The Executive Board of the University of Bern has appointed Claus Beisbart (Climate ethics and philosophy of climate science group) as Full Professor of Philosophy of Science. He had already been Associate Professor (Extraordinarius) at the University of Bern since 2012.

SNFS grant for Doina Radulescu

Doina Radulescu (Climate Economics: Energy, Technological Change and International Cooperation group) was awarded a grant by the SNFS for her project “Powering Forward: Investigating the Economic Impacts of Charging Plug Standardization and Competition among Charging Station Operators”. The project is investigating the impact of regulatory standards on the type of sockets installed and the spread of electric vehicles. The compatibility of charging standards and thus an interoperable fast charging infrastructure can have a decisive influence on the introduction of electric vehicles. One way to achieve this is through legislation. The project is being caried out in collaboration with the Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and was awarded 480,000 CHF.

Wellcome Trust grant for Ana Vicedo

The Climate Change and Health group has been awarded a project grant from Wellcome Trust (Call Attriverse - Developing Digital Solutions for Health Impact Attribution). It is 3.2 million CHF for 3 years, starting in March 2025, with eight different institutions in UK, Spain, US, Peru, Colombia, Mozambique, Malawi and Switzerland. The PI of the awarded project is Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera. The project is called "TACTIC: Health impact toolkit for climate change attribution" and aims to develop a ‘living’ digital toolkit for health impact attribution research co-designed with relevant stakeholders and informed by community interview feedback.

Carole Bouverat: A Climate Scientist with a Broad Perspective

Carole Bouverat

Carole Bouverat graduated as the top student of her year at the Graduate School of Climate Sciences and was awarded the '2024 Oeschger Young Scientist's Prize' in recognition of her achievement. Today, she works for a globally active consulting firm. Read the profile story on the OCCR Website.

Anton Braun: A Successful Shift in Perspective

Anton Braun

Anton Braun graduated as the second-best student of his year at the Graduate School of Climate Sciences and was honored with the '2024 Oeschger Young Scientist’s Prize'. He now works in climate protection at the Office for Environment and Energy of the Canton of Bern. Read the profile story on the OCCR Website.

Barbara Seth and Ana Vicedo featured in “uniFOKUS”

Cover “uniFOKUS”

Two OCCR researchers are prominently featured in the latest issue of “uniFOKUS”. The magazine of the University of Bern is dedicated to women in science and includes a profile story of Barbara Seth (Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores group). Title: ‘Research at the end of the world’. And a video with Ana Vicedo (Climate Change and Health group) as a supplement to the printed magazine. It is entitled ‘As a young foreign woman, I was not taken seriously’.

Enlight grant for Camille Thomas

Camille Thomas (Sedimentary Geochemistry group) was awarded a UniDiverse grant by the Enlight alliance to study the barriers still present to students in terms of inclusion and diversity. Together with a group of European researchers including the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and the University of the Basque Country (Spain), Camille is conducting a study to estimate the level of inclusion and discrimination across Spanish, Ukrainian and Swiss universities. The UniDiverse team has designed a questionnaire for the UniBe students for this purpose, which is accessible in German, French and English : Link zum Fragebogen – Questionnaire en Français – Questionnaire in English. “Our research highly depends on the responses to this questionnaire so please feel free to circulate it among students”, says Camille Thomas. “We hope our result will help make the campus a more inclusive place for all.” 

Charlotte Blattner and Ana Vicedo speak at the Swiss Global Change Day

OCCR members Charlotte Blattner (Climate Change and the Law: Challenges in Practice and Legal Theory group) and Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera (Climate Change and Health group) are among the speakers of the 25th Swiss Global Change Day. Together with Sonia Seneviratne (ETHZ) they are part of a format called Science Talk which is on "Climate Litigation: The Case of the Senior Women for Climate Protection and Beyond".

Heinz Wanner: History of climate research in Bern

Cover brochure

Heinz Wanner (Emeritus) is the author of a new brochure on the origins of Bernese climate research. The publication, which has just appeared in the GEOGRAPHICA BERNENSIA series, is entitled “History of weather and climate research at the University of Bern”, it is 40 pages long and covers the period from 1834 to the present day. The brochure can be downloaded here.

Doina Radulescu on the consequences of US trade policy

In an op-ed piece for the Bernese daily “Der Bund” Doina Radulescu (Climate Economics: Energy, Technological Change and International Cooperation group) analyses the consequences of US trade policy. In her contribution entitled “How tariffs are slowing down the energy transition in the USA”. Doina argues that the USA's current course not only harbours risk for the economy. It is also hindering the necessary change for a climate-neutral future.

Laurie Durel on Carbon Border Adjustments

Laurie Durel (Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance group) has been interviewed by the Canadian national public broadcaster CBC on her research regarding Carbon Border Adjustments. These fees are specifically designed to level the playing field and make domestic products more competitive. The title of the story reads ”Could tariffs fight climate change?”.

Researchers who have recently joined the OCCR:

Phillip Armand Agredazywczuk is a new Postdoc with the Isotope Biogeoscience group. He completed his PhD in Environmental Science at the Univesity of Reading in 2023 on the topic of “Nitrogen cycling in calcareous fen peatlands: stresses, controls and variability”. Before joining the OCCR, Phillip was a Postdoc at the Swiss Data Science Centre at ETH Zürich. He now works on the development and application of a new technique to measure the N2O isotopic composition using precon-centration coupled to laser spectroscopy.

Fernanda Cabello is a new PhD with the Atmospheric Processes and Radiometry group. She did a thesis as a physical engineer at the University of Santiago, Chile. With a thesis entitled "Characterization of cloud phase thermodynamics over King George Island (Antarctic Peninsula) With a Mini Micro-Pulse Lidar." The working title of her PhD thesis is: “Quantify the past, present, and future Stratospheric and Tropospheric Ozone over the Alps and Europe (STOA).

Niklas Gärtner is a new PhD with the Epistemology and ethics of climate change adaptation group. He completed his Master's degree in Philosophy at the University of Hamburg, with a special focus on epistemology and the philosophy of science. His Master's thesis examined the challenges evidentialism faces from epistemic feedback loops and their theoretical application within a credence-based framework. His doctoral research focuses on decision-making under deep uncertainty for climate change adaptation.

Roxane Henriette Gualino is a new PhD with the Terrestrial Ecology group. She did a Master’s in Biogeosciences jointly at the University of Neuchâtel and the University of Lausanne with a thesis entitled "Soil protist diversity along elevation gradients in the Azores and the Swiss Alps: A comparative study in Calluna vulgars litter”. Her PhD research is on “Below-ground trophic interactions under extreme climatic conditions”.

Hannah Hilligardt is a new Postdoc with the Epistemology and ethics of climate change adaptation group. She finished her PhD in Philosophy of Science at the Leibniz University Hannover on the topic of “Science, Representation and Democratic Legitimacy” in 2024.

Urs Hofmann Elizondo is a new scientific programmer with the Ocean Modelling group. He did a PhD at ETH Zurich with thesis entitled: “From individuals to populations: A modeling study of shelled pteropods and their response to acidity and temperature changes in the California Current System”. His new responsibilities will include implementing new functionalities into the GFDL Earth system model and conducting simulations.

Sapna Kumar is a new PhD with the Epistemology and ethics of climate change adaptation group. She holds a Master’s in Philosophy from Ghent University, Belgium, with a thesis entitled „A philosophical inquiry on Epistemic Injustice“. Her PhD thesis is entitled „Climate and epistemic injustice regarding indigenous and local communities: philosophical analysis of knowledge systems in dialogue“.

Ananda Kurth is a new PhD with the Geocomputation and Earth Observation group. She did a Master’s in bioinformatics and computational biology at the University of Fribourg and at the University of Bern with a thesis entitled “Optimizing Urban Greening: Machine Learning and Sensor-Based Classification of Balcony Microclimates”. The working title of here PhD thesis is: “Next-generation vegetation modelling”.

Benjamin Meyer is a new technical staff member with the Hydrology group. He completed his MSc in Geography at the University of Bern and now works on a project that looks at the data quality of discharge data by trying to detect unnoticed changes in the stage-discharge relationship. Benjamin is also interested in the use of machine learning in hydrology, especially in hydrological modelling.

Bruno Millet is a new Postdoc with the Global Biogeochemical Modelling group. He obtained his PhD from the Université Paris-Saclay (LSCE/IPSL) in Oceanography in 2024 with a thesis entitled “Tracer and model constraints on the ventilation of the deep Pacific Ocean". He now works in the framework of the Horizon Europe Past-To-Future project.

Patricia Nying'uro is a new PhD with the Epistemology and ethics of climate change adaptation group. She holds a Master’s of Science (Climate Change) from the University of Nairobi.

Loretta Poku is a new PhD with the Atmospheric Processes and Radiometry group. She completed a Master's in Atmospheric Science and Technology in an inter-university program at Sapienza, University of Rome and University of L'Aquila. The working title of her PhD thesis is "Advancing the 3DVAR+DIV Algorithm for Multistatic Meteor Radar Networks: Retrievals of Mesospheric Winds".

Marcos Quijal Zamorano is a new Postdoc with the Climate Epidemiology and Public Health group. He completed his PhD at ISGlobal (Barcelona Institute for Global Health), where he worked on methodological extensions of state-of-the-art epidemiological models to estimate flexible exposure-response functions in small areas while accounting for the spatial structure of the data. Additionally, he assessed future health impacts related to temperature across different temporal scales, using weather and climate data. His current research focuses on environmental epidemiology, particularly the impacts of climate change on (human) health.

Laila Seehausen is a new PhD with the Climatology group. She did a Master’s in Meteorology at the Leibniz University Hannover, Germany with a thesis entitled “Effects of climate change on water availability in the Lake Chad basin”. For four years, she then worked with the German Cooperation in water projects in Central Africa. The title of her PhD thesis is: “Climate and weather extremes and their effect on agriculture in the Central Andes”.

Maha Sheikh is a new PhD with the Geomorphology and Natural Hazards group. She holds an M.Sc in Structural Engineering from NUST, Pakistan, and an M.Sc in Water Science and Engineering with a specialization in Hydraulic Engineering and River Basin Development from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands. Her PhD project is titled as "Cascading floods and river's geomorphic response to floods."

Nadja-Tamara Studer is a new technical staff member with the Dendrosciences group. She did a MSc in Geography at the University of Zürich and currently works as a lab technician in the RECONSPHERE project.

Muhammad Aammar Tufail is a new Postdoc with the Isotope Biogeoscience group as part of  the N2O-SSA project. He has an interdisciplinary background in biogeochemical modeling, data science, machine learning, and environmental microbiology. He earned his Master’s degree in Agriculture-Soil Science from University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan and completed an Industrial PhD in Agricultural Microbiology at the University of Trento, Italy.

Jacopo Vanoli is a new Postdoc with the Climate Epidemiology and Public Health group. During his joint PhD in Global Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Nagasaki University, he investigated the short- and long-term health effects of ambient PM2.5. His current work focuses on quantifying the health impacts of air pollution and climate-related risk on health, with a strong emphasis on developing and applying advanced statistical methods to large population-based datasets.

Futura Venuto is a new PhD with the Epistemology and ethics of climate change adaptation group. She did a master’s in philosophy at the University of Turin with a thesis entitled “Scientific Objectivity: the Role of Non-Cognitive Values in Climate Sciences”. Title of her PhD project is “What is Good Science? From Climate Science to Climate Services”.

Jeannine Wintzer is a new lecturer with the Climatology group. She studied at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany and has been working as a lecturer in qualitative methods in geography at the University of Bern since 2013. In addition to qualitative methods, she teaches history of the discipline and philosophy of science in geography. Her habilitation thesis, entitled “Towards Social Relations of Space: Geographical Research and Teaching in Knowledge Societies” explores the potential of geographical research and higher education for knowledge societies (a knowledge society generates, shares, and makes available to all members of the society knowledge that may be used to improve the human condition).

A warm welcome to all of you!

Researchers who have recently left the OCCR:

Michaela Mühl who was a PhD and a Postdoc with the Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores group. She received a SNFS Mobility grant and will move to the ice core group at IGE in Grenoble working on methane in the Beyond EPICA ice core.
 
All the best for your future career!

Recent journal publications by OCCR members

See all the publications by OCCR members.