BSC scientist is selected for a Helmholtz Young Investigator Group to establish her own research group in Germany

03 August 2020

Martina Klose, from the Earth Sciences department, will be funded for six years with 1.8 million euros for her research project at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Martina Klose, researcher in the Earth Sciences department, has been selected for a Helmholtz Young Investigator Group funded by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. In total, Klose will be funded for six years with € 1.8 million to create her own independent research group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research.

The research Martina Klose will undertake at KIT, entitled "A big unknown in the climate impact of atmospheric aerosol: Mineral soil dust", has the goal to reduce uncertainty in estimates of the climate impact of mineral soil dust. To better estimate dust impacts, the team will focus on dust sources and dust processes, in particular emission and cloud interactions. One focus of this research will be on giant dust particles, which to date pose many questions to the research community.

Martina Klose will keep a close collaboration with the Atmospheric Composition group at the BSC, led by Carlos Pérez García-Pando and Oriol Jorba. For example, Klose’s research program will include joint field measurements with Pérez García-Pando’s ERC Consolidator Grant project FRAGMENT, which started in 2018.

"I am thrilled about the prospect of developing my own research group at KIT and grateful to both KIT and the Helmholtz Association for giving me this opportunity. At the same time, I am very happy that I will face this exciting challenge in close collaboration with my excellent colleagues at the BSC", said Klose, who will start at KIT in November.

She joined the Atmospheric Composition group within BSC's Earth Sciences department in November 2017, funded by a Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellowship. Shortly after, she was awarded a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, which she started in November 2018.

Helmholtz Young Investigator Groups allow the Helmholtz Association to offer internationally outstanding postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to establish their own research groups and gain early scientific independence. The program is aimed at young scientists who completed their doctorates two to six years ago.