Congratulations to Dr. Karolin Samsel on Successfully Defending Her Doctoral Thesis!

15 May 2025

Photo: C. Ferner

We are proud to celebrate the successful defense of Dr. Karolin Samsel’s doctoral thesis titled:

"Modelling Winter Precipitation Heterogeneities Within an Urban Area"

In her dissertation, supervised by Prof. Dr. Heinke Schlünzen and Dr. Kevin Sieck, Dr. Samsel investigated how urban structures such as buildings and orography affect winter precipitation patterns—particularly the distinction between rain and snow and their respective sedimentation speeds. Her findings show that the high-reaching effects of buildings have a stronger influence on ground-level precipitation heterogeneity than individual buildings themselves. This foundational work is essential for improving the simulation of winter events in warm temperate climate cities.

Dr. Samsel is currently working at the environmental consulting firm Geo-Net.