IIASA ENERGY, CLIMATE, AND ENVIRONMENT (ECE) PROGRAM

We are looking to recruit a motivated and talented researcher in the area of buildings energy modeling to join the Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE Program.

The ECE Program hosts one of the world’s leading Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) teams focusing on systems transformations toward environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The Program employs a diverse set of cutting-edge systems engineering, macroeconomic and agent-based tools. The research focuses on trade-offs and synergies between multiple policy priorities and objectives, typically across multiple sectors and scales (global, regional, national, and subnational). ECE’s scientific outputs inform international and national policy efforts related to climate change (e.g., implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement) and sustainable development (e.g., pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals).

ECE seeks a strong candidate who can support advancing buildings-sector modeling methods as a key component of this broader research agenda. Buildings and shelter fulfill a diversity of essential human needs and are essential for both the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Consequently, global climate and sustainability transitions interact strongly with the evolution of the buildings sector.

The Buildings and Energy Researcher will contribute to developing modeling methods and data to study the characteristics of and transitions in the buildings sector. They will join (and co-lead) existing research efforts, while helping identify, plan, and create new opportunities and research directions. This work will include, but is not limited to:

• Development and application of the MESSAGEix-Buildings model, the open source MESSAGEix modeling framework, and related software and data sets.
• Complementary, quantitative analysis of the buildings sector, including floor space; renovation; energy use; material use; impacts of social and institutional changes; and policies for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.
• Analysis of the impacts of lifestyle change on buildings-related behavior, activity and energy-use.
• Development of low energy demand scenarios, through narratives incorporating all of the above phenomena.
• Design and execution of model-to-model linkages, such as between sectoral choice models and IAMs.

The successful candidate will also represent IIASA and ECE in contributions to ongoing, multi-institution projects and fora, such as ENGAGE, NAVIGATE, and extensions to the Low Energy Demand (LED) study like the EDITS project.

• Contribute to the development of conceptual models of buildings service- and energy demand: identify relevant methods from the literature; improve on these; source appropriate data/measures from diverse sources; and implement analysis with a high degree of rigor.
• Contribute to the application and development of buildings scenarios in a complex integrated assessment model; apply the tool to address diverse research questions.
• Process large volumes of data on (inter alia) building sector activity, technology attributes, and consumer preferences.
• Produce figures, maps, and visualizations to check results and efficiently communicate findings.
• Collaboratively develop model code that is version-controlled, documented, and reproducible, to enable low-cost adaptation of methods for different spatial scopes and/or input data sets.
• Present methods and results to both technical and non-technical audiences. Initiate and organize conference sessions and workshops.
• Write reports and scientific papers to communicate findings.
• Contribute to ongoing and future projects, and participate in external fundraising / grant applications, related to energy and buildings sector transitions and their implication for broader sustainable development issues.
• In line with the team spirit that prevails at IIASA, the incumbent may occasionally work on other tasks assigned by their superiors, that might not be directly related to this appointment but where the post holder has relevant experience and skills, and/or a shortage of immediate personnel capabilities requires such.

Further Information