PhD (M/F/X)

The Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) is a Belgian Federal Scientific Institution. Since its foundation in 1964, BIRA carries out research and provides public service in the field of space aeronomy, i.e. the physics and chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and of other planets, and of cosmic space.

Our scientists use instruments on the ground, in the air, on board balloons or in space, and numerical models.

www.aeronomie.be

Job title description

BIRA-IASB is opening a PhD position for a 4-year study to join the UV-visible observation team. We are looking for an outstanding, highly motivated student with an MSc in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Physics or other relevant field to work in the intersection of Machine Learning and Atmospheric Sciences.

Tasks, division, context

The position is open in the UV-visible observation team. The UV-Vis group, a research team of 18 persons, has developed for over 25 years a strong expertise in the field of ground-based, airborne and satellite atmospheric composition measurements. This includes instrument design, algorithm development, data processing and geophysical interpretation in support of air quality and climate change monitoring. The study implies cooperation with various national and international partners.

Research topic

Recent satellite missions addressing the global monitoring of the atmospheric composition show increased spatial resolution allowing, for the first time, to map the abundance of air pollutants at urban scales. In particular, the Sentinel-5 Precursor mission launched in support of the European Copernicus program provides daily maps of several gases of interest for air quality and climate studies. The job will focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) to describe the physics to relate remotely sensed atmospheric data with ground observations from in-situ networks using a number of ancillary variables to better constrain this relationship.