Stefanie Semper

Stefanie Semper is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Geophysical Institute specialised in ocean climate at high latitudes. After obtaining her Ph.D. in physical oceanography from the University of Bergen in December 2020, she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship by the European Union. As part of her project, Stefanie has spent two years abroad at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Iceland and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US.

Her research focuses on the boundary current system in the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean.  These boundary currents constitute the northern extension of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is instrumental for our climate by transporting warm water poleward near the surface and cold water equatorward at depth. In particular, Stefanie aims to better understand the process of this warm-to-cold water mass transformation and the role of air-ice-sea interactions, as well as the influence of submarine ridges on the dynamics of deep currents.

Stefanie is a sea-going oceanographer, who has spent altogether almost one year at sea on various research ships to collect physical and biogeochemical measurements of the ocean, but she also uses high-resolution realistic as well as idealised numerical simulations for her research.