If you're interested in Bachelor or Masters thesis projects please contact me at thomas'dot'birner'at'lmu'dot'de. Informal requests about PhD or postdoc opportunities are also welcome.

Current Group Members

• Lena Metzner, PhD student, 12/2025 -
• Elisabeth Horst, BSc student, 10/2025 -
• Isabel Trischberger, BSc student, 10/2025 -
• Yoanna Lam, MSc student, 10/2025 -
• Dongsik Cho, MSc student, 04/2025 -
• Laura Braschoß, PhD student, 02/2025 -
• Hasanain Al-Shamarti, PhD student, 07/2020 -
• Thomas Birner, head of group

Past PostDoc/Research Scientists

• Philip Rupp, Postdoc/Research Scientist (LMU), 11/2018 - 07/2025, now at Swiss Re, Zürich, Switzerland
• Aman Gupta, Postdoc (LMU), 02/2020 - 07/2022, now Postdoc at Stanford University, USA
• Lina Boljka, Postdoc (CSU, co-advised by David Thompson), 10/2018 - 09/2020, currently Weather Associate at Citadel, London, UK.
• Peter Hitchcock, PostDoc, CSU, jointly with William Randel at NCAR Boulder, 09/2016 - 09/2017, currently Associate Professor at Cornell University, USA.
• Joowan Kim, PostDoc, CSU, jointly with William Randel at NCAR Boulder, 01/2014 - 02/2016, currently Associate Professor at Kongju National University, South Korea.
• John Albers, PostDoc, CSU 01/2013 - 12/2015, now Research Physical Scientist at NOAA PSL, Boulder, USA.

Completed PhD Theses

• Frederik Harzer, LMU 09/2025 (Transport processes regulating lowermost stratospheric ozone and their year-to-year variability)
• Jonas Späth, LMU 09/2024 (Stratosphere-troposphere coupling and its impacts on Northern winter subseasonal-to-seasonal forecast uncertainty), currently Postdoc at ECMWF, Bonn, Germany.
• Louis Rivoire, CSU (co-advised by John Knaff) 02/2020 (Origins and Impacts of Tropopause Layer Cooling in Tropical Cyclones), currently Postdoc at MIT, USA.
• Nicholas Davis, CSU 07/2017 (The Dynamics of Hadley Circulation Variability and Change), currently at Citadel, USA.
• Jeremiah Sjoberg, CSU 09/2014 (Wave-Mean Flow Positive Feedbacks Associated with Sudden Stratospheric Warmings), currently Project Scientist, NCAR, USA.

Completed Master Theses

• Paul Bauer, LMU, Long-term water vapour trends in the extratropical tropopause region, 07/2025
• Michel Mertens, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), A machine learning approach to interpolate sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) data, 06/2025
• Dominik Kampe, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), The effects of a tropopause inversion layer on baroclinic wave-lifecycles, 12/2024
• Annika Stenzl, LMU, Exploring the tropopause-tropical width relationships: metrics, regressions, trends, 09/2024
• Britta Seegebrecht, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Stratospheric variability related to the Quasibiennial Oscillation, 08/2024
• Max Sesselmann, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Studying eddy development in double-jet configurations of idealized baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments, 11/2023
• Marco Sirbescu, LMU (co-advised by Jonas Späth), Troposphärische Signale vor und nach plötzlichen Stratosphärenerwärmungen in Langzeit-Ensemble-Vorhersagen, 04/2023
• Sandro Damato, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Aspekte der interannuellen Variabilität der polaren Sommerzirkulation, 03/2023
• Christian Sackrenz, LMU (co-advised by Aman Gupta), Aspects of planetary waves in the austral winter stratosphere, 12/2022
• Pablo Conrat Fuentes, LMU (co-advised by Hella Garny), Aspects of jet regimes in a dry dynamical core model, 10/2022
• Felix Jäger, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Influence of multimodal initial perturbations on the dichotomy of baroclinic life cycles, 12/2021
• Frederik Harzer, LMU (co-advised by Hella Garny), Aspects of climate variability associated with atmospheric angular momentum transport, 09/2021
• Lucie Chabert, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), Ozone transport and its radiative feedback in the tropical tropopause layer, 12/2020
• Carolin Schürer, LMU, Eddy-mean flow feedbacks and atmospheric jet variability in observations and a simple mechanistic model, 09/2020
• Jonas Späth, LMU, Statistical analyses of stratosphere-troposphere coupling in extended-range ensemble forecasts, 09/2020
• Luke Davis, CSU (co-advised by David Thompson), Connections between climate sensitivity and large-scale extratropical dynamics, 02/2019
• Edward Charlesworth, CSU, Transport-radiation feedbacks of ozone in the tropical tropopause layer, 02/2017
• Kathryn Boyd, CSU, Education Research (co-advised by Prof. Meena Balgopal), Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Investigating discourse dynamics in an atmospheric science educational outreach program, 12/2016
• Anne (Sasha) Glanville, CSU, Vertical and horizontal mixing in the tropical tropopause layer, 04/2015
• Erin Dagg, CSU (co-advised by Prof. Richard Johnson), Tropical tropopause layer variability associated with the Madden-Julian oscillation during DYNAMO, 03/2015
• Nicholas Davis, CSU, Seasonal to multi-decadal variability of the width of the tropical belt, 05/2013
• Laura Paulik, CSU, Quantifying deep convective influence on the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), Fall 2011
• Jeremiah Sjoberg, CSU, Low-order models of sudden stratospheric warmings, Fall 2010

Completed Bachelor Theses

• Mathilda Keller, LMU, Interannual polar vortex-moisture co-variability during northern hemispheric winter, 09/2025
• Davide Fischer, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), The role of temperature advetion in northern Eurasian cold spells following sudden stratospheric warmings, 06/2024
• Hannah von Heydebrand, LMU (co-advised by Frederik Harzer), Interannuale Ozonvariabilität in der nördlichen Hemisphäre von gekoppelten Chemie-Klimamodellen, 08/2022
• Paul Bauer, LMU (co-advised by Jonas Späth), The role of Ural blockings in stratosphere-troposphere coupling based on extended-range ensemble forecasts, 08/2022
• Klara Dömer, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), A detailed analysis of the mid-latitude energy budget and baroclinic-wave life cycles, 07/2022
• Philipp Küstner, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Diagnostics to distinguish different flavours in baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments, 07/2022
• Laura Messfeldt, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Dynamics of the stratospheric polar vortex in a simple three-layer model of wave-mean flow interactions, 09/2021
• Michael Schutte, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Investigation of the stratospheric NH-polar vortex dynamics in winter 2019/20, 02/2021
• Dario Sperber, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), What influences the tropical tropopause layer? A one-dimensional modeling study, 12/2020
• Julia O'Meara, LMU (co-advised by Philip Rupp), Untersuchung der Troposphären-Stratosphären-Kopplung anhand von Extremereignissen während der stark anormalen Wintersaison 2019/2020, 12/2020
• Pablo Conrat Fuentes, TUM, Distinguishing mean and eddy contributions to the latitudinal maxima of atmospheric angular momentum transport, 05/2020
• Julia Kolb, LMU, Dynamische Aspekte der Plötzlichen Stratosphärenerwärmung im Winter 2018/2019, 02/2020
• Leonhard Hufnagl (co-advised by Philip Rupp), LMU, Troposphärische Blockierungen und ihre potentielle Relation zur Stratosphäre, 12/2019
• Thomas Fiedler, LMU, Untersuchung zum Zusammenhang zwischen arktischer Meereisdecke und Temperatur, 09/2019
• Maximilian Pfeuffer, LMU (co-advised by Julien Savre), Modeling of convection-driven ozone transport at the tropical tropopause layer, 07/2019