Opportunity Title: CLIMATE RISK LAB DATA SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING FELLOWSHIP 2027

CLIMATE RISK LAB DATA SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING FELLOWSHIP 2027
 

Climate data is huge, messy and urgent. The Climate Risk Lab wants data scientists who can handle it and turn it into science people can act on.

This is a full-time, one-year fellowship, with a possible second year based on performance. It could also be turned into a PhD scholarship or postdoc funding. You will be based at the lab in Cape Town.

🔬 WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Analyse large climate, environmental, health and socioeconomic datasets
• Build and apply AI tools to improve data workflows, and help others use them
• Download, clean and process very large datasets
• Write efficient code for large spatial-temporal data, including parallel computing
• Keep workflows reproducible using Git
• Document and explain your work clearly
• Lead or co-lead a project towards a peer-reviewed paper, toolkit or dataset

Be ready to travel internationally if needed.

🤝 WHAT YOU GET
A mentor, either a senior data scientist or a postdoctoral researcher. A chance to lead data-intensive research. A place in working group meetings with international collaborators, and possibly conferences. Pay is described as competitive with academic and market rates, based on experience. No figure is given.

✅ MINIMUM CRITERIA

• MSc or first-class Honours (completed or in final year) in data science, machine learning, computer science, maths, statistics or a related field
• Programming skills, preferably Python or R
• Solid grounding in statistics or data science
• Excellent written and spoken communication

⭐ NICE TO HAVE
xarray, pandas, numpy, zarr, netCDF4, terra, tidyverse, arrow or duckdb. Bash, Linux and HPC. GitHub. Agentic AI tools. Experience with large spatial-temporal data.

⚠️ READ THIS BEFORE YOU APPLY
Your CV must state whether you hold a valid South African work or study permit. The call does not say whether the lab will sponsor one. If you are outside South Africa, find out before you invest hours in the application.

📝 WHAT TO SUBMIT
One single PDF containing:

• Your CV, with two referees (name, position, email)
• A cover letter on why you fit
• Your academic transcript
• Optional: links to GitHub or Jupyter notebooks
• Optional: personal website or LinkedIn

💡 BANKABLE WISDOM TIPS

1. Lead with your best code. One clean repository beats a long list of skills.
2. Name a climate or health question you would want to answer. It shows you understand the work.
3. Build the PDF in the exact order listed. Reviewers should not have to hunt.
4. “Ongoing” usually means applications are read as they arrive, so do not wait.
5. Settle the permit question first, then polish everything else.

👉 Official call: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pEIWBsWh4o4WxmPsxv0E_Y8JCfbrr35n/view