If you're interested in Bachelor or Masters thesis projects please contact us at thomas'dot'birner'at'lmu'dot'de. Informal requests about PhD or postdoc opportunities are also welcome.

Current Group Members

  • Laura Braschoß, PhD student, 02/2025 -
  • Michel Mertens, MSc student, 04/2024 -
  • Paul Bauer, MSc student, 10/2023 -
  • Frederik Harzer, PhD student, 10/2021 -
  • Hasanain Al-Shamarti, PhD student, 07/2020 -
  • Philip Rupp, Postdoc, 11/2018 -
  • Thomas Birner, head of group

Past Group Members (PhD students and Postdocs)

  • Jonas Späth, PhD student (LMU), 11/2020 - 10/2024
  • 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.
  • Louis Rivoire, PhD student (CSU, co-advised by John Knaff), 08/2015 - 02/2020, currently Postdoc at MIT, USA.
  • Peter Hitchcock, PostDoc, CSU, jointly with William Randel at NCAR Boulder, 09/2016 - 09/2017, currently Assistiant Professor at Cornell University, USA.
  • Nicholas Davis, PhD student, CSU, 06/2013 - 07/2017, currently at Citadel, 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.
  • Jeremiah Sjoberg, PhD student, CSU 12/2010 - 09/2014, currently Project Scientist, NCAR, USA.
  • Guadalupe Saenz Garcia, Visiting Ph.D. Student, CSU 09/2010 - 11/2010 (Universidad de Extremadura, Fisica, Spain)

Completed Master Theses

  • 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

  • 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