PhD Candidate at Empa and ETH Zurich
Urban Climate | Atmospheric Modelling | Scientific Computing
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I am a PhD candidate at Empa, affiliated with ETH Zurich, working on urban climate modelling and human thermal comfort. My research focuses on how street trees influence urban cooling, outdoor thermal comfort, and atmosphere–urban surface interactions.
I work with numerical weather and climate models, urban parameterizations, and large atmospheric datasets. My current research involves the development and application of urban canopy modelling approaches, including ICON, Terra_Urb, and BEP-Tree.
Alongside my research, I am interested in building practical scientific tools for climate data analysis, visualization, and model-data workflows.
My PhD research focuses on the role of street trees in urban environments, with particular attention to:
- Urban cooling and heat mitigation
- Human thermal comfort
- Urban canopy modelling
- Atmosphere–surface exchange processes
- Coupling urban parameterizations with mesoscale atmospheric models
PhD in Environmental Sciences
Empa and ETH Zurich, Department of Environmental Systems Science
Thesis: The Influence of Street Trees on Urban Cooling, Human Thermal Comfort, and Carbon Dynamics
MSc in Atmospheric Sciences
Istanbul Technical University
Thesis: Future Changes in Hourly Extreme Precipitation, Return Levels, and Non-stationary Impacts in Türkiye
BSc in Meteorological Engineering
Istanbul Technical University
Thesis: Assessment of Urbanization Impact on Heavy Precipitation in Istanbul, Turkey
Evaluating the role of Urban Canopy Parameters in ICON TERRA_URB
Urban Climate
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A climate data platform for exploring atmospheric conditions in Türkiye using statistical and thermodynamic analysis methods.
A Python package designed to simplify access to atmospheric model and observation datasets such as ERA5, GFS, GEFS, NAM, and GHCN through OpenDAP-based workflows.
- Urban climate and land–atmosphere interactions
- Climate and weather modelling with ICON, COSMO, and WRF
- Scientific Python: Xarray, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, MetPy
- Climate data processing and visualization
- Extreme precipitation and return-level analysis
- Machine learning for environmental time series
- Renewable energy data analysis
- Dashboards and interactive tools with Plotly Dash and Streamlit
You can find more about my work here:
- Website: donmezkutay.github.io
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kutaydonmez
- Linktree: linktr.ee/kutaydonmez