Team Members — Experts powering the future

Gijs van den Oord

WP4 Leader / Section head “Natural Sciences and Engineering” at NLeSC
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About
Gijs is a physicist by training and did his PhD on the Monte Carlo simulation of scattering of electroweak gauge bosons in the Large Hadron Collider. He worked for a while as a software consultant at Deltares, Netherlands, after which he joined the eScience Center as a research software engineer. His work has mostly focused around the weather and climate domains, and he aims to leverage his expertise on HPC, machine learning and software architecture to advance the field towards unprecedented accuracy and resolution.
Gijs van den Oord
WP4 Leader / Section head “Natural Sciences and Engineering” at NLeSC
Karsten Peters-von Gehlen

WP3 Leader / Group leader “Data Handling Workflows” at DKRZ
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Karsten holds a PhD in meteorology and has - in his life as a scientist - mainly worked on the representation of clouds and convection in general circulation and storm-resolving models and combined that with observations. Since more than 7 years now, Karsten works at the German Climate Compting Center (DKRZ) in Hamburg in the Data Management Department. There, he focuses on methods to maximize the usability of high-resolution, high-volume climate model datasets and the establishment of the FDO (FAIR Digital Object) concept for climate science.
Karsten Peters-von Gehlen
WP3 Leader / Group leader “Data Handling Workflows” at DKRZ
Maria Arista-Romero

WP6 Leader / Scientific communication Specialist
Contact esiwace3-communication@bsc.es
About
Maria holds a PhD in Nanosciences and specialises in Scientific Communication and Event Management. She is currently a Scientific Communication Officer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC), managing communication on high-performance computing and climate and weather. With a background in Biochemistry, she earned an MSc in Bioengineering and Molecular Genetics and completed her PhD at IBEC and the University of Barcelona, focusing on Nanoscopy for Nanomedicine. She has led numerous outreach initiatives, creating educational content and organizing events to connect science with the public.
Maria Arista-Romero
WP6 Leader / Scientific communication Specialist
Mario Acosta

WP1 Leader / ESiWACE3 coordinator / Co-leader Computational Earth Sciences group (BSC)
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Mario C. Acosta is a leading researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. He is currently co-leading the Computational Earth Sciences (CES) group, which has over 70 members. Dr. Acosta’s research focuses on High Performance Computing (HPC) applied to Earth System Models. He is the coordinator of the HorizonE ESiWACE3: Center of Excellence for Weather and Climate Phase 3 and work package leader in HPC tasks related to the development of significant climate projects, such as the climate digital twin in Destination Earth.
Mario Acosta
WP1 Leader / ESiWACE3 coordinator / Co-leader Computational Earth Sciences group (BSC)
Peter Dueben

WP2 leader / Head of Earth System Modelling at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
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Peter is coordinating the development of one of the world’s leading global weather forecast models — The Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). He is also a Honorary Professor at the University of Cologne. Before, he was AI and Machine Learning Coordinator at ECMWF and University Research Fellow of the Royal Society performing research towards the use of machine learning, high-performance computing, and reduced numerical precision in weather and climate simulations. Peter is coordinator of the WeatherGenerator Horizon Europe project that aims to build a machine-learned foundation model for weather and climate applications.
Peter Dueben
WP2 leader / Head of Earth System Modelling at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Rosa Rodríguez Gasén

WP7 member / Scientific communication Specialist
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About
Rosa has a degree in Physics, an MSc in Astronomy and Astrophysics and a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Barcelona (UB). After more than ten years dedicated to research in solar astrophysics, she enrolled in a master’s degree in Specialised Translation at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). This led her to work as a translator and scientific reviser, as well as to enter the world of science education, popularisation and communication. Rosa is currently responsible for the communication of the Earth Sciences Department’s research at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC).
Rosa Rodríguez Gasén
WP7 member / Scientific communication Specialist
Missing asset
Alba Abia

Leader Task 6.5 / EU Projects Innovation Officer at BSC
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About
Alba Abia holds a degree in Biological Systems Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and a master’s degree in project management from La Salle-Universitat Ramon Llull (La Salle-URL). After five years as a project manager for start-ups, she specialised in innovation at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) as EU Project Innovation Manager, where she has since managed exploitation, helping researchers to maximise the potential of their ideas and the impact of their results.
Alba Abia
Leader Task 6.5 / EU Projects Innovation Officer at BSC
Missing asset
Donatello Elia

WP3 member / Computer Scientist at CMCC
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About
Donatello Elia is a Computer Scientist at the Advanced Digital Innovation Center (ADIC) of the CMCC Foundation. Currently, he leads the Data Science research team in ADIC. He holds a PhD degree in Engineering of Complex Systems and a M.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering, both from the University of Salento, Italy. His main research interests include data science, big data, high performance data analytics, scientific/climate data management, and machine learning.
Donatello Elia
WP3 member / Computer Scientist at CMCC
Erwan Raffin

WP4 co-leader / Center for Excellence in Performance Programming (CEPP) at Bull
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About
Dr. Erwan Raffin is the collaborative project leader of the Center for Excellence in Performance Programming (CEPP) at Eviden. He earned his PhD in computer science in 2011 from the University of Rennes 1, France, in collaboration with Technicolor and the Cairn INRIA project team. His career took off at CAPS Enterprise, where for three years, he was at the forefront of developing cutting-edge software for performance application tuning in the HPC domain. He then worked at INSA Rennes (IETR CNRS) in the Image Group as a research engineer on low-power video decoders. In 2016, he joined Eviden’s CEPP, diving into the Weather and Climate community and their HPC applications. Today, he continues to drive innovation and collaboration, coordinating projects that push the boundaries of high-performance programming.
Erwan Raffin
WP4 co-leader / Center for Excellence in Performance Programming (CEPP) at Bull
Federico Iori

WP7 Leader / Resarch project manager
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About
Federico Iori is a computational physicist with a PhD in Physics obtained at University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2008 and 2015 MSCA fellow He spent more than 12 years of academic and private research in first principle materials modelling. Since 2021 he joined the PMID group in BSC, as exploitation and business innovation officer and then as research project manager.His consolidated R&D expertise permits to foster and manage collaborations and projects within strategic chain values assets for different business lines in HPC, materials, chemical, energy and climate sectors. He is active scientific expert for different EU calls: evaluator for EU H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, EU H2020- MSCA-PF 2021, PRACE HPC EU, Marti-Franques Cofund programme 2020 (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) and FLAG-ERA 2021 call. He is author of more 20 peer reviewed publications.
Federico Iori
WP7 Leader / Resarch project manager
Italo Epicoco

Co-leader WP 2 / Principal Scientist and Group Leader "AI4Climate&Impacts" at ADIC Center, CMCC
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Italo Epicoco is a Professor at the University of Salento, Lecce. He works at CMCC as principal scientist regarding machine learning approaches for climate modelling. He received a Ph.D. in 2003 in Computer Science field at the University of Lecce, Italy. His main skills concern computer engineering and computer science. His research interests include the design of machine learning and data mining algorithms on High-end computing architectures, High Performance and Distributed Computing. He is currently working on machine learning approaches for weather and climate prediction.
Italo Epicoco
Co-leader WP 2 / Principal Scientist and Group Leader "AI4Climate&Impacts" at ADIC Center, CMCC
Joakim Kjellsson

Scientist / Researcher & Scientific programmer at Rossby Centre, SMHI
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Juniper Tyree is a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She holds a M.Eng. in Computing from Imperial College London and a M.Sc. in Theoretical and Computational Methods from the University of Helsinki. Juniper’s research focuses on facilitating environmental research using computer science, with a focus on safety. In ESiWACE3, Juniper is working to make lossy compression of weather and climate model data safe and trustworthy. In particular, she is working on (1) compression safeguards which guarantee that user-selected data features are preserved by lossy compression, (2) benchmarking existing lossy compressors, and (3) building the Online Compression Laboratory for science communication and outreach about lossy compression.
Joakim Kjellsson
Scientist / Researcher & Scientific programmer at Rossby Centre, SMHI
Lars Hoffmann

Co-leader WP1 / Head of Division HPC in Applied Sciences and Engineering at JSC
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Lars Hoffmann is Senior Researcher and Head of the Division HPC Applied Science and Engineering at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) in Germany. His work focuses on Earth system and atmospheric modelling and the use of high-performance computing to advance large-scale climate and weather simulations. He leads activities that support scientists in developing, porting, and optimizing complex scientific models and data workflows for leadership-class supercomputers. His research interests include numerical modelling of the atmosphere, scalable simulation workflows, and the integration of advanced computing technologies to improve the performance and scientific capabilities of next-generation Earth system models.
Lars Hoffmann
Co-leader WP1 / Head of Division HPC in Applied Sciences and Engineering at JSC
Marco Kulüke

WP3 member / Data Management Specialist at DKRZ
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About
Marco Kulüke holds a M.Sc. in Meteorology and works as a data management specialist at the DKRZ in Hamburg. His work focuses on advancing data infrastructures for Earth system science, particularly through the development and application of FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs) within the ESiWACE3 project. He is actively involved in research around distributed data services, including use cases of IPFS-based solutions for open climate research data and reproducible data workflows. In addition to his research activities, Marco Kulüke contributes to training and community building in scientific computing, serving as an instructor in Python courses for geoscientists.
Marco Kulüke
WP3 member / Data Management Specialist at DKRZ
Nikki Brown

Co-leader WP 5 / Science research communicator at SMHI
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Nikki holds a PhD in Arctic physical oceanography from the University of Southampton, UK, and has worked as a researcher at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. She also brings eighteen years of experience in policy-making at national and regional level in the UK. Since 2023 she has been based at the Rossby Centre for Climate Modelling at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, where she focuses on user engagement, communication of research outcomes and project management. Within ESiWACE3 she co-leads the training work package and contributes to communications.
Nikki Brown
Co-leader WP 5 / Science research communicator at SMHI
Missing asset
Sara Faghih-Naini

Scientist, WP2 and WP3 member / Computer Scientist at ECMWF
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About
Sara Faghih-Naini is a computer scientist working in the Research Department at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Bayreuth, where her research focused on discontinuous Galerkin methods and high-performance computing (HPC) approaches for ocean simulations. She works at the intersection of HPC, applied mathematics, data science, and Earth system applications, contributing to projects aimed at improving the performance, scalability, and usability of complex scientific models and data workflows. Her work supports the development of the next-generation performance-portable numerical model PMAP, including the GT4Py domain-specific library. Additionally, she is involved in advancing data compression techniques for operational weather and climate modelling.
Sara Faghih-Naini
Scientist, WP2 and WP3 member / Computer Scientist at ECMWF
Xavier Yepes-Arbós

Leader Task 4.4 / HPC for Earth Sciences Team Leader
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Xavier Yepes-Arbós is a research engineer of the Earth Sciences Department at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) where he leads the High-Performance Computing for Earth Sciences Team. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering with specialization in computer architecture and a master’s degree in Innovation and Research in Informatics (MIRI) with specialization in HPC from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He joined BSC in 2015 to work on different research lines, including scalability and performance analysis of Earth system models (ESMs), optimization of the computational and I/O processes, data compression and explore novel hardware architectures.
Xavier Yepes-Arbós
Leader Task 4.4 / HPC for Earth Sciences Team Leader