If you're interested in Bachelor or Masters thesis projects please contact me at thomas'dot'birner'at'lmu'dot'de. Informal requests about PhD or postdoc opportunities are also welcome.
Postdoc position in atmospheric and climate dynamics currently available
Current Group Members
- Lena Metzner, PhD student, 12/2025 -
- Elisabeth Horst, BSc student, 10/2025 -
- Isabel Trischberger, BSc student, 10/2025 -
- Yoanna Lam, MSc student, 10/2025 -
- Dongsik Cho, MSc student, 04/2025 -
- Laura Braschoß, PhD student, 02/2025 -
- Hasanain Al-Shamarti, Visiting Scientist, 07/2020 -
- Thomas Birner, head of group
Past PostDoc/Research Scientists
- Philip Rupp, Postdoc/Research Scientist (LMU), 11/2018 - 07/2025, now at Swiss Re, Zürich, Switzerland
- Aman Gupta, Postdoc (LMU), 02/2020 - 07/2022, now Postdoc at Stanford University, USA
- Lina Boljka, Postdoc (CSU, co-advised by David Thompson), 10/2018 - 09/2020, currently Weather Associate at Citadel, London, UK.
- Peter Hitchcock, PostDoc, CSU, jointly with William Randel at NCAR Boulder, 09/2016 - 09/2017, currently Associate Professor at Cornell University, USA.
- Joowan Kim, PostDoc, CSU, jointly with William Randel at NCAR Boulder, 01/2014 - 02/2016, currently Associate Professor at Kongju National University, South Korea.
- John Albers, PostDoc, CSU 01/2013 - 12/2015, now Research Physical Scientist at NOAA PSL, Boulder, USA.
Completed PhD Theses
- Hasanain AL-Shamarti, LMU 11/2025 (
Circulation Aspects, Dynamical Mechanisms, and the Predictability of Summer Heatwaves over Iraq
) - Frederik Harzer, LMU 09/2025 (
Transport processes regulating lowermost stratospheric ozone and their year-to-year variability
) - Jonas Späth, LMU 09/2024 (
Stratosphere-troposphere coupling and its impacts on Northern winter subseasonal-to-seasonal forecast uncertainty
), currently Postdoc at ECMWF, Bonn, Germany. - Louis Rivoire, CSU (co-advised by John Knaff) 02/2020 (
Origins and Impacts of Tropopause Layer Cooling in Tropical Cyclones
), currently Postdoc at MIT, USA. - Nicholas Davis, CSU 07/2017 (
The Dynamics of Hadley Circulation Variability and Change
), currently at Citadel, USA. - Jeremiah Sjoberg, CSU 09/2014 (
Wave-Mean Flow Positive Feedbacks Associated with Sudden Stratospheric Warmings
), currently Project Scientist, NCAR, USA.
Completed Master Theses
- Paul Bauer, LMU, Long-term water vapour trends in the extratropical tropopause region, 07/2025
- Michel Mertens, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), A machine learning approach to interpolate sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) data, 06/2025
- Dominik Kampe, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), The effects of a tropopause inversion layer on baroclinic wave-lifecycles, 12/2024
- Annika Stenzl, LMU, Exploring the tropopause-tropical width relationships: metrics, regressions, trends, 09/2024
- Britta Seegebrecht, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Stratospheric variability related to the Quasibiennial Oscillation, 08/2024
- Max Sesselmann, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Studying eddy development in double-jet configurations of idealized baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments, 11/2023
- Marco Sirbescu, LMU (co-advised by Jonas Späth), Troposphärische Signale vor und nach plötzlichen Stratosphärenerwärmungen in Langzeit-Ensemble-Vorhersagen, 04/2023
- Sandro Damato, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Aspekte der interannuellen Variabilität der polaren Sommerzirkulation, 03/2023
- Christian Sackrenz, LMU (co-advised by Aman Gupta), Aspects of planetary waves in the austral winter stratosphere, 12/2022
- Pablo Conrat Fuentes, LMU (co-advised by Hella Garny), Aspects of jet regimes in a dry dynamical core model, 10/2022
- Felix Jäger, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Influence of multimodal initial perturbations on the dichotomy of baroclinic life cycles, 12/2021
- Frederik Harzer, LMU (co-advised by Hella Garny), Aspects of climate variability associated with atmospheric angular momentum transport, 09/2021
- Lucie Chabert, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), Ozone transport and its radiative feedback in the tropical tropopause layer, 12/2020
- Carolin Schürer, LMU, Eddy-mean flow feedbacks and atmospheric jet variability in observations and a simple mechanistic model, 09/2020
- Jonas Späth, LMU, Statistical analyses of stratosphere-troposphere coupling in extended-range ensemble forecasts, 09/2020
- Luke Davis, CSU (co-advised by David Thompson), Connections between climate sensitivity and large-scale extratropical dynamics, 02/2019
- Edward Charlesworth, CSU, Transport-radiation feedbacks of ozone in the tropical tropopause layer, 02/2017
- Kathryn Boyd, CSU, Education Research (co-advised by Prof. Meena Balgopal), Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Investigating discourse dynamics in an atmospheric science educational outreach program, 12/2016
- Anne (Sasha) Glanville, CSU, Vertical and horizontal mixing in the tropical tropopause layer, 04/2015
- Erin Dagg, CSU (co-advised by Prof. Richard Johnson), Tropical tropopause layer variability associated with the Madden-Julian oscillation during DYNAMO, 03/2015
- Nicholas Davis, CSU, Seasonal to multi-decadal variability of the width of the tropical belt, 05/2013
- Laura Paulik, CSU, Quantifying deep convective influence on the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), Fall 2011
- Jeremiah Sjoberg, CSU, Low-order models of sudden stratospheric warmings, Fall 2010
Completed Bachelor Theses
- Mathilda Keller, LMU, Interannual polar vortex-moisture co-variability during northern hemispheric winter, 09/2025
- Davide Fischer, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), The role of temperature advetion in northern Eurasian cold spells following sudden stratospheric warmings, 06/2024
- Hannah von Heydebrand, LMU (co-advised by Frederik Harzer), Interannuale Ozonvariabilität in der nördlichen Hemisphäre von gekoppelten Chemie-Klimamodellen, 08/2022
- Paul Bauer, LMU (co-advised by Jonas Späth), The role of Ural blockings in stratosphere-troposphere coupling based on extended-range ensemble forecasts, 08/2022
- Klara Dömer, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), A detailed analysis of the mid-latitude energy budget and baroclinic-wave life cycles, 07/2022
- Philipp Küstner, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Diagnostics to distinguish different flavours in baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments, 07/2022
- Laura Messfeldt, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Dynamics of the stratospheric polar vortex in a simple three-layer model of wave-mean flow interactions, 09/2021
- Michael Schutte, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Investigation of the stratospheric NH-polar vortex dynamics in winter 2019/20, 02/2021
- Dario Sperber, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), What influences the tropical tropopause layer? A one-dimensional modeling study, 12/2020
- Julia O'Meara, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Untersuchung der Troposphären-Stratosphären-Kopplung anhand von Extremereignissen während der stark anormalen Wintersaison 2019/2020, 12/2020
- Pablo Conrat Fuentes, TUM, Distinguishing mean and eddy contributions to the latitudinal maxima of atmospheric angular momentum transport, 05/2020
- Julia Kolb, LMU, Dynamische Aspekte der Plötzlichen Stratosphärenerwärmung im Winter 2018/2019, 02/2020
- Leonhard Hufnagl (co-advised by Philip Rupp), LMU, Troposphärische Blockierungen und ihre potentielle Relation zur Stratosphäre, 12/2019
- Thomas Fiedler, LMU, Untersuchung zum Zusammenhang zwischen arktischer Meereisdecke und Temperatur, 09/2019
- Maximilian Pfeuffer, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), Modeling of convection-driven ozone transport at the tropical tropopause layer, 07/2019