Spotlight on a Young Researcher: Aleks Lacima Nadolnik from Barcelona Supercomputing

Meet Aleks Lacima Nadolnik, a Junior Research Engineer in the Climate Services Team of the Earth System Services group at Barcelona Supercomputing. Aleks’ academic background includes a BSc in Physics and an MSc in Meteorology from the University of Barcelona. Within I4C, he works on the co-production of climate information and services based on forecasts, predictions and projections. Learn more about his work within I4C on co-production below.

What do you do for Impetus4Change? Is it the first project you’ve worked on? 

My role in I4C has been focused on providing technical support to the social scientists working on the Barcelona demonstrator city  (as a part of Work Package 6), particularly on extreme heat and thermal comfort indicators and variables. I4C is not my first project, I’m currently also involved in the Destination Earth initiative, which aims to create a full digital twin of the Earth’s climate system. Before that, I was involved in a small project on air quality and health called EARLY-ADAPT. 

What is the most interesting thing you learned so far working on Impetus4Change?  

The most interesting thing so far has been to learn first-hand what are the needs of local and regional stakeholders in terms of climate information and how we, as climate services providers, are capable of tailoring this information to their specific requirements by working together and including them in the pipeline.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are you working on?  

In 5 years, provided that everything goes according to plan, I see myself having completed a PhD in Climate Dynamics and hopefully being able to pursue an academic career in this amazing world of climate sciences. I’m currently working on two case studies in the frame of Destination Earth, one related to heat extremes in urban environments, centered on Barcelona, and a second one focusing on renewable energies at the European scale.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

For many years I wanted to be an astronaut, even being aware that it was something almost completely impossible to achieve. When my interest in Physics started to grow I eventually decided to pursue studies in this field. My initial idea when starting the BSc was to become an astrophysicist or maybe a cosmologist. Through many twists and turns, I ended up getting captivated by climate dynamics and climate change.

Who is your science idol? Someone you wish you could have a conversation with (from the past or contemporary).

That’s a hard one. The first that comes to my mind would be Werner Heisenberg, a German theoretical physicist known for his extensive contributions to Quantum Mechanics and for formulating the uncertainty principle.

Which Impetus4Change research outcome/WP/expert (other than your own) are you most excited to learn about or collaborate with?

I’m really excited to learn about the outcomes of temporal merging across different time scales, also known as seamless predictions, that are being developed by Work Package 5. Developing new methods to bridge the gap between predictions and projections would be extremely valuable for the whole climate community.

Have you read any interesting books/articles recently that really made you think?

I recently read An Honorable Exit by French author Éric Vuillard, where he masterfully portrays the French point of view in the First Indochina War. I also particularly recommend his other book The Order of the Day.

If Impetus4Change held a party, which song would you request from the DJ?

I would certainly request Rasputin by Boney M. Some classics just never get old.