Here we introduce Junior Professor Marlene Kretschmer from the Institute for Meteorology at our faculty. You will find information about her career, research and teaching, as well as an advice she would give herself as a student.
Plans and priorities can change and it pays to keep an open mind and adjust your goals.
Jun-Prof Dr Marlene Kretschmer
Career
- 2014: Completion of Studies
Mathematics, Diplom
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Thesis: “Serre´s conjecture on projective modules” - 2018: Doctorate
Dr rer nat, Climate Physics
Universität Potsdam and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Topic: “Disentangling the causal drivers of the stratospheric polar vortex: A machine learning approach” - 2018–2019: Postdoc
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research - 2019–2022: Postdoc
University of Reading, UK -
since 2023: Junior Professor (Tenure Track) for Climate Causality
Universität Leipzig, Institute for Meteorology
Research
My research focuses on the causal drivers and impacts of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves or cold waves. In particular, I investigate which large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and “teleconnections” are responsible for the occurrence of extreme events and how they may change in a warmer climate. To do this, I use a variety of new methods from statistics and machine learning and combine them with classical climate physics approaches. My goal is to extract relevant climate information from climate data that is needed for adaptation to human-induced climate change. For example, I try to improve predictions of weather and climate extremes and to understand whether and why certain extreme events are becoming more frequent.