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Pierre Gentine

Pierre Gentine is a pioneer and world leader in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to earth systems science. His research contributes significantly to improving climate models. By appointing him, the University of Tübingen is seeking to continue strengthening Germany’s and Europe’s vanguard position in AI-supported earth systems research and achieve a visible position for the location in international competition.

  • Nominating University: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Porträt von Pierre Gentine
Saturn-ähnliches Dekortationsbild

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Climatology

If we are to understand and halt climate change, precise representations of climate processes, such as the water and carbon cycles, are indispensable. This is where the work of Pierre Gentine comes in. He wants to better understand and predict the complex interactions between atmospheric processes, soil moisture and the carbon cycle. In addition to observations, he long ago recognised and utilised the potential of machine learning to improve climate models. Gentine and his team demonstrated that neural networks could mimic convection in the interior of clouds, which is seen as a breakthrough in the use of AI in climate research.
Linking AI to core questions in the geosciences, especially climate modelling, is not only scientifically innovative but also of huge societal and ecological relevance. What does a future involving periods of extreme drought and precipitation look like? What impact do such periods have on agriculture and how can we forecast extreme events more accurately? 

In his role as a Humboldt Professor at the University of Tübingen, Pierre Gentine will assume a new professorship in Computational Earth System Physics and dovetail climate research more closely with computer science. The university thus aims to extend its existing focus at Tübingen AI Center to embrace the use of AI to protect our planet, and to build new national and international collaborations between the geosciences and AI research. Gentine is invited, moreover, to play an important role in founding a new cross-faculty institute for sustainable transformation.

Brief bio

Pierre Gentine studied mathematics and engineering at the École Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (SUPAERO) in Toulouse, France. After completing a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering at MIT, United States, he moved to New York’s Columbia University in 2009, becoming a full professor at the Earth Institute in 2021. Here he founded and heads the AI-supported climate modelling centre Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP). He has been honoured by the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society and granted the NSF Career Award as well as other early career awards. In 2019, he received an ERC Synergy Grant.

Pierre Gentine has been selected for a Humboldt Professorship and is currently conducting appointment negotiations with the German university that nominated him for the award. If the negotiations are successful, the award will be granted in 2026.