Research Fellow in Next-Generation Urban Climate Modelling

Ref Number

B04-07907

Professional Expertise

Research and Research Support

Department

UCL BEAMS (B04)

Location

London

Working Pattern

Full time

Salary

£43,981-£54,019

Contract Type

Fixed-term

Working Type

Hybrid

Available for Secondment

No

Closing Date

26-Oct-2026

About us

The UCL Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction (RDR) inspires innovation and evidence-based practice focused on improving disaster risk reduction (DRR) through our research, education, and partnerships. This creates a better life for many people by reducing the negative impacts of disasters. The RDR is an exciting cross-UCL department, which leads research, knowledge exchange and teaching in the fields of risk and disaster reduction and humanitarian action. By providing a focus for UCL’s activities the RDR, with its breadth of disciplinary emphasis, promotion of novel multidisciplinary research and translation into practice, aims to assume a role of leadership both in the UK and internationally. The Department has 30 members of academic and teaching staff, 12 members of research staff ranging from research assistants to professorial research fellows and 9 members of professional services staff. The Department is in the Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MAPS), but works across all UCL’s faculties, and contributes to UCL’s Grand Challenges. The RDR strives to produce world-leading research in disaster risk reduction through a multidisciplinary perspective for the long-term benefit of humanity. The RDR has established the Humanitarian Institute, Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies, Centre for Gender and Disaster, and jointly with UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies the Warning Research Centre. The RDR conducts research around the themes of disaster risk reduction and resilience, cascading crises, natural hazards, climate change risk and adaptation, humanitarian crisis response, GIS and remote sensing, law and economics, conflict and migration, catastrophe modelling, warning, digital health in emergencies, and inclusivity including gender responsive resilience, in order to integrate education, research, innovation and enterprise for the long-term benefit of humanity. The RDR aims to develop leaders and experts in disaster risk reduction research, education, and practice. We run PhD and MRes programmes in Risk and Disaster Reduction, MSc programmes in Risk, Disaster and Resilience and Risk and Disaster Science, and an undergraduate BSc programme in Global Humanitarian Studies, all with a diverse and cross-disciplinary international intake. We have about 25 PhD students, 90 masters students and will have about 180 students across the three years of the BSc programme from 2023-2024 academic year. The RDR seeks to empower all to break down barriers to global DRR knowledge. This knowledge exchange is a core part of the mission of the RDR, which it seeks to fulfil by publishing high-impact reports, engagement with the media and building long-term partnerships. RDR members have joined and led several field missions and contributed to multidisciplinary reports. These reports have been drawn on by the UK Cabinet Office and other government bodies in advice to ministers. RDR staff contributed substantially to the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health. The RDR has close links with London First, the business representative grouping, private companies, London Resilience and UK Government, including the Cabinet Office, and is developing links with intergovernmental organizations such as the International Migration Organization, Plan International, UN Women and other NGOs. UCL RDR runs regular events to engage the public and potential partners in issues relating to risk and disaster reduction and humanitarian action, such as its Annual Conference and Humanitarian Summit.

About the role

The Research Fellow is responsible for the scientific integrity and the institutional memory of SUEWS through a period of substantial technical change. They will establish the evidence that the model is correct. A working benchmark already tests each release against observations; the postholder takes it from one reference site to a set spanning contrasting climates, decides what counts as a pass, and sets out in one place, for the first time, what the model assumes, where those assumptions hold and where they do not. They will also capture reasoning that has never been written down, through a structured interview programme with the model's developers and long-standing users: why particular parameterisations were chosen, what was tried and abandoned, and how the science was actually done. That material becomes the training and onboarding route through which new contributors join the project. The postholder will work closely with the PI and with the Research Software Engineer at Reading, and is expected to publish from this work and present it internationally.

About you

You will hold a PhD in a discipline relevant to urban climate, environmental modelling or scientific computing, and be able to move confidently between observational data and model output. You will be confident working with scientific code and data, and will have a track record of publishing your own research. We care more about whether you can tell a right result from a wrong one than about how much code you have written, and we expect and welcome the use of AI coding assistants. You will write clearly for readers of very different backgrounds, from model developers to local authority users, and you will be comfortable drawing knowledge out of experienced colleagues and recording it faithfully. We are interested in capability rather than a particular career path: urban climate expertise reaches this field from architecture, public health, engineering and computing as often as from meteorology, and we welcome applications from any of those routes. Please note that this post leads validation, documentation and knowledge transfer rather than core code development, which is led by the Research Software Engineer at the University of Reading.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are: • 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days per annum) per annum • Additional 5 days' annual leave purchase scheme • Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE) • Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan • Immigration loan • Relocation scheme for certain posts • On-site gym • Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay • Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service • Discounted medical insurance. To find out more, visit www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

We know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women. You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion