• PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam
• Visiting scientist at Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
• Asset Liability Management Climate Researcher at Rabobank

Ruud Sperna Weiland is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) under the supervision of Dim Coumou (VU) and Karin van der Wiel (KNMI). He holds a double master’s degree in Econometrics and in Computational Science. Next to his PhD, he is employed at Rabobank, where he aims to combine his financial background with climate science and to bridge the gap between these worlds in order to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable and climate resilient financial sector. In his spare time he enjoys travelling, photography, and playing boardgames with friends and family.

His primary research interests are persistent summer atmospheric circulation patterns, how these originate and how these evolve over the course of a summer. In his research he aims to answer fundamental questions about the circulation dynamics within a summer and how these dynamics change in a warmer climate, as well as more practical questions related to the potential impact of extreme weather on agriculture and the financial sector. He applies machine learning techniques on large ensembles of simulated climate datasets which enables him to study these questions in unprecedented detail.