URBAN CLIMATE SUMMER SCHOOL

Benjamin Bechtel is a Research Associate with the Cluster of Excellence CliSAP, University of Hamburg. His research interests include urban remote sensing, in particular the characterization of urban surfaces for applications in urban climatology. Dr. Bechtel received the dissertation award 2013 for physical geography of the Verband der Geographen an Deutschen Hochschulen (VGDH) for his Ph.D. thesis. He acts as a Reviewer for several international journals including Urban Climate, Climate Research, Theoretical and Applied Climatology and Remote Sensing of Environment and as a guest editor for Remote Sensing in the Special Issue "The Application of Thermal Urban Remote Sensing to Understand and Monitor Urban Climates".

Jürgen Breuste, University of Salzburg (Austria)

Jürgen Breuste held a professorship for Geography/Urban Ecology at Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg (Austria) (born 1956). He studied geography at Martin-Luther University Halle/Wittenberg from where he got his PhD 1982 and his second graduation 1986. He was university lecturer for geography, geo-ecology and urban ecology at the German universities in Halle, Greifswald, Dresden and Leipzig and headed of department Urban Landscape at the Environmental Research Centre Leipzig/Halle for 10 years before his actual position in 2001. There he is Honorary Professor of Capital Normal University Beijing, China, full professor for urban ecology of East China Normal University Shanghai, and member of several scientific boards and president of the International Society of Urban Ecology (SURE). He has worked as project leader in a number of research projects on urban ecology and urban development at EU level and in other international cooperation. He is specified in urban ecosystem research, nature protection and modelling of urban development by numerous publications.

Sorin Cheval is a senior climatologist, Associate Research Scientist at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography (since 2004), and he is a Fulbright Alumnus at the University of South Carolina (USA). His habilitation thesis (2015) focused on urban climate and climate change. Dr. Sorin Cheval delivers courses at the University of Bucharest and "Henri Coanda" Air Force Academy from Brasov (Romania), and he is a convener of Urban Climate section of the European Geophisyical Union. In connection with urban climate, his main interests are monitoring techniques, assessment of urban heat island, and climate change impacts.

Matthias Demuzere is a climate scientist with a specific interest in global, regional and high-resolution climate modelling, urban canopy layer modelling, green and blue urban infrastructure, multi-source remote sensing and crowd-sourcing climate data initiatives. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Hydrology and Water Management – Ghent University, working on the SAT-EX project. Before, he obtained his PhD in Science at KU Leuven, where he also completed a six year post-doctoral position. During both the PhD and post-doc position he has been working abroad on various occasions, amongst others including long-term research stays at the National University of Singapore, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and the MPI for biogeochemistry in Jena (Germany). Over these years he has been working on various topics on the land-atmosphere interface: synoptic circulation patterns and their role in the climate and air quality (e.g. COST733), the role of water sensitive urban design (CRC for Water Sensitive Cities), urban climate adaptation and mitigation strategies (COST TU0902), modelling urban surfaces and their atmosphere interactions, high resolution convection permitting models (CLIMAQS & MACCBET), wind energy production yields in a changing climate. Particularly in the context high-resolution (urban) climate research initiatives, the availability of high spatio-temporal observational data is crucial. As such, I am currently exploring ways to engage “the crowd” in collection such data, for example via the contribution to the world urban database and access portal tools (WUDAPT) and the exploration of netatmo of other low-cost sensor datasets for typical meteorological variables. Profile link: http://www.ugent.be/bw/dfwm/en/research/LHWM/staff/matthias

Dr. Dumitrescu for more than fiteeen years as researcher at the Department of Climatology, National Meteorological Administration of Romania. He has a PhD in Physical Geography from the Univeristy of Bucharest. He specializes in handling and analyzing spatio-temporal data with R. The main interests are related on the area of spatial interpolation of climate data, climate change and variability, spatial modeling with meteorological and climatological data, the use of remote sensing satellite-derived products in climatological applications, i.e., urban climate, climate monitoring and solar energy assessment.

Matei Georgescu is Associate Professor, Associate Director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, and part of the core leadership team of the Urban Climate Research Center at Arizona State University. His scholarly activities focus on the improved diagnosis and understanding of distinct phenomena related to urbanization-induced landscape change, as well as potential adaptation and mitigation strategies. In addition, he examines environmental consequences (e.g., on climate and hydrology) of renewable energy expansion by integrating across physical, agricultural, and socioeconomic elements. The range of tools used to investigate these topics include climate models, remote sensing data and associated applications, and in situ weather/climate observations. He has written more than 40 peer-reviewed articles that have appeared in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (USA), Nature Climate Change, and Journal of Climate. His current projects are funded by the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Agriculture.

Doctor in Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna and in Landscape Planning, University Guglielmo Marconi Rome. Position: Senior Scientist at IBIMET Institute (Institute of BioMeteorology) of the National Research Council. Principally involved in research on surface energy balances, air-vegetation interactions, and meteo-climatology of the urban environment. National Representative of IAMAS-IUGG. Member of the IUGG Committee “Capacity Building and education”. Coordinator in the Regional High Technology Network of the pillar “Energy and Environment”. Member of Administrative Council of ProAmbiente consortium.

David Hondula is Assistant Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University. He is also a volunteer faculty affiliate of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, and part of the leadership group of the ASU Urban Climate Research Center. Hondula’s research examines the societal impacts of weather and climate with an emphasis on extreme weather and health. His recent projects involve statistical analysis of health and environmental data to understand the impact of high temperatures on human health in urban areas. He is also developing new techniques to measure and assess personal heat exposure in cities. Hondula’s research is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Building Resilience Against Climate Effects initiative.

Ioan Ianoș is Professor of Human Geography Department at the University of Bucharest. His research is focused on urban and regional development, on the human-environment relationships, economic development and migration, territorial analysis and theoretical geography. The main obtained results were published in different journals as Urban Studies, Land Use Policy, Erde, or as chapters in volumes issued in well-known international publishing houses: Springer, Edward Elger, Cabi, Palgrave, McMillan, Ashgate etc. As leader of Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Research on Territorial Dynamics, belonging to the Bucharest University, he managed different national and international research grants, and promoted an important number of young researchers in the higher education or research institutes.

Prof. Cristian Ioja is Head of Department Regional Geography and Environment, Professor in the Faculty of Geography and Senior Researcher in Centre for Environmental Research at the University of Bucharest. Cristian Ioja earned his PhD in Geography. In 2015 obtain the Habilitation in Environmental Sciences. He is the treseurer of Society for Urban Ecology and president of the Society for Urban Ecology – South Eastern Europe Chapter. The research activities are focused on urban ecology, especially on environmental assessment of different land-uses in urban areas, understanding the relation between built-up and green-blue infrastructure, socio-economic drivers and promotion of urban sustainable planning. His current researches are linked by environmental conflict assessment in natural and human ecosystems, consequences of urbanization on ecosystems services supply, green infrastructure assessments and Natura 2000 sites planning. More of his research results are transferred at administrative level in order to improve the decision makings process.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Matzarakis is leading since August 2015 the Research Center Human Biometeorology of the German Meteorological Service in Freiburg. Appointed as extraodrinary Professor at the University of Freiburg since October 2006. He was born at Pentalofos/Evros, Greece in 1960. He received a degree in Meteorology in 1989 from the Physics Department, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in 1989 and a Ph.D. degree in Meteorology and Climatology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. From 1995 to 2001 he was a scientific assistant at meteorological Institute of the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg and earned his habilitation about the "thermal component of the urban climate” in 2001. He is appointed to Professor at the University of Freiburg in October 2006. His research is mainly focused on urban climatology, human-biometeorology, tourism climatology, regional climatology, forest meteorology and climate impact research. He is founder and editor of the urban climate website. Since 1996 he chairs the commission on climate, tourism and recreation of the International Society of Biometeorology. He was vice-president of the International Society of Biometeorology (2008-2011). He is the developer of several models and tools in applied climatology and biometeorology i.e. RayMan Model, SkyHelios Model, Climate Mapping Tool and CTIS (Climate-Tourism/Transfer-Information-Scheme).

Prof. Oded Potchter is Vice Dean and Chair of The Academic Council of the Faculty of Society and Culture at the Beit Berl College and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. His area of expertise is Applied Climatology focusing on bio-climatology, urban climatology, climate related planning, green buildings and the urban heat island phenomenon with in desert cities. His PhD thesis was on the Climatic Aspects of the Building of Ancient Urban Settlements in the Land of Israel. In recent years, his research has focused on the environmental impact (climate, air pollution and noise) of urban habitants as well as the impact of green spaces on urban climate. In terms of teaching, he specializes in field studies, climatic measurements and environmental monitoring. Prof. Potchter is a climatic consultant and was involved in the planning process of the desert city of Beer Sheva and the new city of Ramat Beit Shemesh as well as other smaller scale projects.

Arch. Silvia Rossi. Born in Bologna (Italy), she holds a degree in architecture and starting a collaboration with Department of Architecture and Urbanistic, Engineering Faculty, University “La Sapienza”, Rome (Italy) and with CNR-IBIMET in research projects in the field of urban planning, bio-architecture, renewable energy and living quality. She works on Energy Planning for Public Administrations. She was a consultant for Emilia Romagna Region for EU project REPUBLIC MED and she is a consultant for Ravenna Municipality on FIESTA project and IMPULSE - MED.

David Sailor is the Director of the Urban Climate Research Center at Arizona State University. His scholarly agenda focuses on the intersection of climate with the built environment. This includes investigation of feedback mechanisms between the built environment and climate with a focus on building energy consumption and renewable energy resources as well as both indoor and outdoor thermal comfort and air quality. He has worked extensively on quantifying the causes and prospects for mitigating the urban heat island effect. His current research projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Environmental Protection Agency are exploring potential for mitigating indoor and outdoor thermal environment and air quality with an emphasis on vulnerable elderly populations.

Arne Sæbø made his PhD in horticulture in 1992 and started thereafter to work in the research institute that today is Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO). He is at present leader of NIBIO Særheim Research station and does research in the department of Urban Greening. His work has been on plant selection for urban forestry, shelterbelts, plants’ responses to climate and CO2, vegetation’s ability to collect pollution and the role of urban vegetation in storm water management. The international engagement has been in several COST actions, Nordic networks, bilateral projects, for example with Poland and at present as a coordinator of the FACCE SURPLUS project “INTENSE”, with seven European countries participating.

Leena Järvi is university researcher at the Division of Atmospheric Sciences of University of Helsinki. She is the leader of the urban meteorology group at the Division, which studies urban climate and air quality using state-of the art observations and modeling at different urban scales. L. Järvi got her PhD in meteorology in 2009 from the University of Helsinki focusing on observations of urban turbulence and air quality. Afterwards she worked one year as a research associate at King’s College London (UK), where she participated to develop the Surface Urban Energy and Water balance Scheme (SUEWS). Her current research projects examine the surface-climate interactions in high-latitude cities and focus to include realistic aerosol dynamics to a Large Eddy Simulation model that could further be used in high-resolution air quality simulations and as support for urban planning. She is the board member of the International Association for Urban Climate and acts as a co-convener for urban climate related sessions in the European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology (EMS) annual conferences. She is work package leader in H2020 project Aerosols, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS-2) and PI of the ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) supporting ecosystem site in Helsinki.