Senior Research Associate in Hydroclimatic Extremes and Causal Pathways

Salary: £48,337 to £51,258 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 27 October 2026

The Role

The EXTREME-FUTURES project will develop a seamless framework for predicting hydroclimatic extremes by connecting global climate drivers, regional weather regimes and extreme events across weather-to-climate timescales. The project focuses on persistent and connected extremes, including heatwaves, floods, storms and compound events, and will combine causal inference, feature tracking, observations and reanalysis, high-resolution modelling, and AI/machine learning.

As Senior Research Associate, you will lead key analyses within Work Package 1:Causal Pathways. You will identify extreme and compound temperature and precipitation events across multiple spatial and temporal scales; investigate the interactions between large-scale climate drivers, circulation regimes and atmospheric features that create pathways to extremes; and develop statistical and AI/ML approaches to identify semi-predictable pathways. The work will begin in Europe, using established weather-regime classifications and comprehensive observations, and will then expand globally. You will work closely with colleagues at ETH Zurich, the UK Met Office, ECMWF and the wider EXTREME-FUTURES team, contributing to WP1’s key outcome: a seamless framework for impactful hydroclimatic events from weather to climate scales.

As part of our commitment to career development for research colleagues, the University has developed 3 levels of Research Innovation Role Profiles. These profiles set out firstly the generic competencies and responsibilities expected of role holders at each level and, secondly, the general qualifications and experiences needed for entry at a particular level.

Newcastle University is committed to the responsible use of research metrics as part of our research culture and research strategy. We advocate for the transparent, appropriate, and inclusive use of metrics, guided by expert judgment, to support high-quality, impactful research that is open, collaborative and sustainable.

Contact for the post: Professor Hayley Fowler

Duration of post: 24 months

To apply , please upload your CV along with covering letter that evidences how your skills and experience aligns to the person specification as outlined within the job description.

Key Accountabilities

• Assess global temperature and precipitation anomalies across multiple temporal and spatial scales, relative to climatology, to identify extreme and compound hydroclimatic events.
• Work with the wider project team to investigate causal pathways to European extreme events and subsequently extend the analysis globally, linking climate drivers, circulation/weather regimes and tracked atmospheric features.
• Apply and develop robust statistical and causal-inference approaches to identify key driver–feature interactions and quantify relationships associated with persistent, connected and compound extremes.
• Collaborate with project partners to develop and evaluate AI/ML algorithms that capture semi-predictable pathways to extreme events, and benchmark these against physical and machine-learning sub-seasonal to seasonal forecast systems.
• Take a leading role in integrating, documenting and disseminating WP1 outputs, contributing to the project’s seamless weather-to-climate framework and to cross-work-package collaboration.
• Contribute ideas, including enhancements to the technical or methodological aspects of the project.
• Determine appropriate methodologies for research.
• Assess research findings for the need/scope for further investigations.
• Contribute to the writing up of the research and its dissemination, either through seminar and conference presentations or through publications.
• Present research findings, either at conferences or through publications in reputable outlets appropriate to the discipline.
• Contribute to grant applications submitted by others and develop own research objectives and proposals for funding.

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Knowledge and research experience in climate science, atmospheric science, meteorology, hydroclimatology, or a closely related quantitative discipline, with expertise relevant to weather and climate extremes.
• Experience of analysing large observational, reanalysis, climate-model and/or weather-forecast datasets across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
• Strong quantitative and scientific programming skills, for example in Python, R or an equivalent language, including reproducible data analysis and visualisation workflows.
• Experience of statistical analysis relevant to climate variability and extremes; experience of causal inference, weather regimes/teleconnections, feature tracking, or compound-event analysis is highly desirable.
• Experience of, or demonstrable ability to develop, AI/machine-learning methods for environmental or geophysical data.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with methodological specialists.
• Attention to detail and ability to work at high levels of accuracy
• Ability to present complex information effectively to a range of audiences
• Proven ability to analyse data and write-up results
• Experience of working collaboratively with colleagues
• Excellent IT skills in all major office applications
• The ability to use personal initiative and creativity to solve research problems.
• Awareness of the research environment
• High level of analytical and problem solving capacity
• Ability to communicate complex information with clarity
• Experience of presentations at conferences and/or in high quality publications

Attributes and Behaviour

• Commitment to working positively as a member of a multi-skilled research team
• Ability to negotiate and prioritise multiple, competing responsibilities and to work to deadlines
• Commitment to continued professional development
• Understanding of good practice in equality, inclusion and diversity

Qualifications

• PhD in climate science, atmospheric science, meteorology, hydrology/hydroclimatology, physical geography, environmental science, applied mathematics, data science, or a closely related discipline, or equivalent research experience.

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality. We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC. We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe.

Requisition ID: 29828