Dr. Jakob Wessel

Postdoctoral Researcher

Bio

I am a Statistician interested in applications in Meteorology and Climate Science. My PhD at University of Exeter, in collaboration with the UK Met Office and the Alan Turing Institute, was focused on statistical methods to improve probabilistic weather forecasts. Before that I studied for an MSc in Data Science at University College London, worked for a year at the 2° Investing Initiative, a sustainable finance think-tank, and studied for a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics at Technical University Berlin and for a second one in philosophy and political Sciences at Free University Berlin. Outside of work I enjoy climbing, reading and making sourdough bread.

Research Interests

My research focuses on statistical and machine learning method development for meteorological and climate science applications. In particular I am interested in using methods from probabilistic forecasting for understanding and predicting local scale climatic extremes. I have worked across a range of topics from climate model bias adjustment, weather generator models, forecasting methodology and extreme value theory. I am passionate about methods and tools for open and usable climate information, and I try to make my own research widely usable and openly available — for example through the development of open-source software such as the ibicus package for bias adjustment of climate models.

Curriculum Vitae

2026 - Present

Post Doctoral Researcher

Leipzig University, Institute for Meteorology, Germany

2022 - 2026

PhD Student

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

2021 - 2022

Analyst

2° Investing Initiative, London, UK

2020 - 2021

MSc Data Science

University College London (UCL), London, UK

2017 - 2020

BA Philosophy and Political Sciences

Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

2017 - 2019

BSc Mathematics and Physics

Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Selected Publications