Join the C3PO group! *

We are always excited to hear from prospective students, postdoctoral researchers, and visitors interested in quantitative, multidisciplinary, and curiosity-driven climate science.

Diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences strengthens our science, and we especially need everyone’s unique insights to address the climate crisis. We are thus strongly committed to maintaining a supportive, collaborative, and inclusive environment. C3PO welcomes applicants from all races, ethnicities, religions, nationalities, genders, identities, ages, affiliations, orientations, and/or disability statuses.

If you are passionate about using quantitative methods to understand the climate system —– past, present, and future —– please get in touch to schedule a meeting to discuss aligned aims.

PhD Students

We actively encourage inquiries from prospective PhD students excited about topics in paleoclimate, data assimilation, climate dynamics, and/or climate sensitivity.

Students can apply through the Department of Geography PhD Program. We advertise projects each year through the Cambridge NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards (DLA); we also frequently co-supervise students at the British Antarctic Survey through their PhD track in Antarctic Studies.

Key funding timelines (see here for up-to-date deadlines):

  • October for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship
  • Early December to be competitive for most internal University / College funding pools (highly recommended)
  • January for the NERC DLA PhD projects

Prospective students are encouraged to get in contact well in advance of these deadlines to discuss potential projects.

Postdocs

We currently do not have any advertised positions (though please check back in the coming months). However, we are always happy to discuss postdoctoral opportunities with motivated researchers who have strong backgrounds in climate science, statistical / data science, or related fields.

Potential researchers are especially encouraged to propose project ideas that may be formulated as external fellowship applications (e.g., NERC, Royal Society, Leverhulme, Marie Curie – see below). Cambridge colleges also individually offer various funding opportunities; these can be rather opaque but some general information can be found here.

Several external fellowship options (see this nice synthesis):

If interested, please email Matt ( mo549 (at) cam.ac.edu) with a CV, a brief statement of research interests, and proposed timeline to discuss funding options.

MPhil Students

We encourage inquiries from students in the following MPhil programs:

Students with strong quantitative backgrounds are particularly encouraged to get in touch to discuss potential research projects. Generally speaking, projects we are able to host will be advertised internally.

Cambridge undergraduates

We welcome inquiries from undergraduate students interested in diving headfirst into rigorous climate research. In particular, 2nd-year undergraduates in Cambridge Geography looking to develop 3rd-year dissertation topics are encouraged to reach out.

If interested, please send a short statement of interest and a CV to Matt to schedule a meeting ( mo549 (at) cam.ac.edu).

Visitors

We are happy to host visiting students, researchers, or academics on sabbatical (subject to space). If you are interested in arranging a visit, particularly if you’re contributing personal funds to do so, please reach out well in advance with a short description of your research plans.

Established researchers in Paleoclimatology may be interested in the following (lucrative) visiting scholar scheme at Cambridge: The Sir Nicholas Shackleton Fellowship

Contact

Matt Osman
Assistant Professor of Climate Science
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
20 Downing Pl, Cambridge, UK CB2 1DB

mo549 (at) cam.ac.edu

* All trademarks and copyrights for C-3PO and Star Wars are the property of Lucasfilm Ltd. and The Walt Disney Company. This reference is intended for non-commercial and entirely geeky purposes. Basically, please don’t sue us.

** Time series taken from: Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2005), A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records, Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071.