Would you like to help make climate change adaptation planning more readily available across Europe and beyond, and are you interested in rainfall, hydrology, statistics, and open data science? Then here is an opportunity for you. We are looking for a talented and motivated industrial PhD student to help further develop the data that empowers users of SCALGO Live to build better urban environments and restore nature.
About SCALGO Live
SCALGO Live is a digital platform that supports planning for better surface water management, where users can interactively explore existing conditions and design terrain-based solutions for water challenges ranging from pluvial flooding to wetland restoration and beyond.
SCALGO Live offers nationwide flood maps and fast interactive tools for exploring why floods occur at a given location, and for designing surface water solutions that mitigate the risk of flooding. All tools and maps are based on very detailed geo-spatial data sets (sub-meter resolution). To create the SCALGO Live user experience, SCALGO analyses trillions of data elements using state-of-the-art geometric analysis algorithms.
SCALGO Live is currently used by more than 20.000 professionals in municipalities, water utilities and consulting engineering companies in 9 European countries. We work in close collaboration with our users to constantly improve the platform, and we continuously add more countries and data.
About your role
To make it even easier for our users to analyze surface water challenges and design solutions to them, we want to offer consistent and reliable rainfall data for current and future climate scenarios, which they can apply in the various tools in SCALGO Live as well as in other applications.
Together with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Sustain) and the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), we have formulated a research project that aims to develop new methods for producing local design rain events from regional climate model outputs. Your role will be to further develop and execute the research plan, under supervision and guidance from a team from DTU Sustain, DMI and SCALGO.
The research plan involves the following activities:
- Data collection: you will find and collect relevant data to be used in the project. This includes time series with high temporal resolution (minute scale), which describe rainfall events with short durations but are scarcely available, time series with lower temporal resolution, which are widely available and can be used to obtain a representation of spatial variations, and model outputs from climate simulations and reanalysis experiments.
- Create data-driven statistical and/or machine learning models that predict the probability of extreme rain events (IDF curves) and the inherent uncertainty for any location in Europe based on regional datasets, compare the results with locally available IDF curves, and potentially expand this analysis to other continents.
- Validation of the predicted probabilities through user engagement: you will validate the IDF curves through the involvement of expert knowledge in regions where local data is not readily available. You will also conduct a scientific literature review to identify possible secondary comparison data, i.e. places where IDF estimates have been published in scientific publications, but where the primary data is not available. If necessary, you will adjust the machine learning method you developed based on the qualitative feedback and generate updated IDF curves.
- Predicting the probability of extreme rain events for future climates: you will extend the developed method to generate IDF curves for future climates based on regional/global climate projections and validate the generated IDF curves against national estimates where available and against the scientific literature where possible.
The research plan is designed as an industrial PhD project, such that besides your main affiliation with SCALGO you will be enrolled as PhD student at DTU Sustain. This entails taking relevant academic courses, writing scientific articles, presenting at conferences, partaking in research group activities, contributing to teaching activities and supervision of BSc and MSc projects related to your project, and fulfilling other duties towards qualifying for a PhD-degree.
You will spend about half of your time at the SCALGO office in Copenhagen, and the other half at DTU Sustain in Kgs. Lyngby, with visits to DMI when relevant. Professor Peter Steen Mikkelsen (DTU Sustain) and Head of Hydrology Sara Lerer (SCALGO) will act as main supervisors. Associate Professor Roland Löwe (DTU Sustain), Data Scientist Jonas Tranberg Hansen (SCALGO), and Climate Scientist Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup (DMI) will act as co-supervisors. You will also do a short stay at a research institute outside of Denmark, the details hereof to be agreed upon.
About you
You are excited about the prospect of supporting water professionals in their work to create better cities and natural environments through the provision of easily accessible, standardized, and reliable rainfall data. You must have an MSc degree (120 ECTS credits) in environmental engineering, hydrology, earth sciences, data science/applied statistics or similar. You enjoy juggling large amounts of data and working in a python-scripting environment. Experience with machine learning techniques and an understanding of meteorological processes are considered great assets.
You are interested in pursuing an academic degree and motivated to investigate novel and uncertain techniques and communicate the results. You are also pragmatic and motivated to get your research implemented in real-world solutions.
About SCALGO, DTU Sustain and DMI
SCALGO was founded as a university spin-off to bring cutting-edge massive data-processing technology to the market. SCALGO currently employs a team of 25 highly qualified employees covering 8 different nationalities. The technical team consists of world leading experts in designing and implementing algorithms for analyzing massive elevation data. The market team consists of highly skilled engineers with deep insights into how users work with surface water in each of the countries that they operate in. SCALGO is continuously growing and has strong international ambitions. SCALGO is headquartered in Aarhus, Denmark with offices in Copenhagen and Seoul.
DTU is a leading technical university globally recognized for the excellence of its research, education, innovation, and scientific advice. We offer a rewarding and challenging job in an international environment. We strive for academic excellence in an environment characterized by collegial respect and academic freedom tempered by responsibility. DTU Sustain – Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering – is one of the largest university departments specializing in environmental and resource engineering in Europe, with approximately 300 staff from more than 30 nationalities. The candidate will be affiliated with the research group Water Systems Analysis, which hosts a growing group of PhD students that develop data-driven methods for environmental systems. The department has a lively PhD community and puts great emphasis on combining cutting-edge research with a collaborative work and social environment.
The National Center for Climate Research (NCKF) at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) was established in January 2020 with the purpose of researching and communicating climate change and its consequences for people and nature in the Danish Realm. NCKF supports DMI’s work as the government’s climate science advisor, as stated in the Climate Act. NCKF conducts research and gathers knowledge from climate research in the Danish Realm and collaborates with Danish universities and authorities as well as with a wide range of knowledge institutions around the world through national and international research projects, cooperation agreements and joint PhD students.
Employment conditions, assessment, and academic enrolment
The project is a 3-year industrial PhD scholarship supported by the Innovation Fund Denmark. You will be employed full time at SCALGO and enrolled at DTU simultaneously.
The assessment of the applications is carried out by a recruitment team from SCALGO, DTU Sustain and DMI. Furthermore, the scholarship for the PhD degree is subject to academic approval by DTU and Innovation Fund Denmark. For information about our enrolment requirements and the general planning of the PhD study program, please see DTU’s rules for PhD education.
The successful candidate is expected to start in April or May 2024, or later if necessary to e.g. complete an MSc program.
If you are applying from abroad, you may find useful information on working in Denmark and at DTU here: DTU – Moving to Denmark.
Application
If this proposition excites you, then please send your application to jobs@scalgo.com no later than Monday the 12th of February 2024.
The application must be submitted as one single attached pdf-file including all material to be given consideration. The pdf-file must include:
- A letter motivating the application (cover letter)
- Curriculum Vitae
- BSc/MSc diploma including full grade transcripts (in English) and an official description of the grading scale (if not from a Danish university).
You may apply prior to obtaining your MSc degree but cannot begin before having received it.
All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, race, disability, religion or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.
Further information may be obtained from Sara Lerer (email: sara@scalgo.com) and Peter Steen Mikkelsen (email: psmi@dtu.dk).
