Scientific programmer on ‘Modular design of agent-based models and models’ integration’

Join our vibrant ERC ‘SCALAR’ project team, which focuses on linking behavioral and economic data with integrated computational models to study how people adapt in face of hazards and what it means for climate change damage assessments: http://www.sc3.center/ . Damage associated with climate change is a core benchmark in science and policy. Yet, global damage assessments are criticized for neglecting risk distribution, adaptation dynamics beyond top-down public protection, and resilience of communities, cities and regional economies, which are well captured in micro data and models. The SCALAR project aims to connect micro and macro traditions by modeling the behavioral aspects of private adaptation of households and firms, and integrating them into macro level climate policy models. The SCALAR research program consists of three phases: collecting longitudinal households’ survey data; developing computational spatial agent-based models (ABM) of a regional economy adapting to climate-induced floods and sea level rise; and redesigning a macroeconomic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to account for private adaptation in climate change damages and to further link to Integrated Assessment Models (IAM). 

The current Programmer position will support the project on a number of computational tasks. The successful candidate will work within the SCALAR research team for a period of 2-3 years to help with (1) the design and increasing the performance of spatial ABM, and (2) integrating ABM with CGE models, and establishing a link with IAM. The first set of tasks will involve a development of a modular approach to the design of ABM, with a thorough model architecture, and flexible pathways for scaling up spatial ABM (currently coded in Python). Moving from urban to large-scale agent-based simulations is an important aspect of the project. This will also require a thorough uncertainty analysis, ABM output data processing and visualization. For the second set of tasks that aspire to link the ABM with the CGE model (coded in GAMS), you will work on aligning the data exchange between these models based on the latest advances in multi-modeling and the international standards on model integration. This may also involve a development of software wrappers. We connect to the international efforts (iEMSs, GLP, CSDMS, AIMES and Open Modeling Foundation) to build large-scale ABM and to standardize integration of multiple models. Depending on your preferences, you will also be given an opportunity to attend conferences of relevant international communities.

You will be part of the Policy Analysis group in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. The Department hosts 100+ scholars with computer science and policy analysis background with many specialized in quantitative modelling of socio-technical-environmental systems.