This two-day workshop offers an in-depth exploration of how climate extremes and climatic factors influence population health. Participants will gain hands-on experience with epidemiological and biostatistical methods relevant to climate-health research, building strong methodological foundations to apply in their own work.

Application

• The workshop is free to attend and covers all sessions.
• Intermediate knowledge of R is required.
• Applications from outside Sweden are welcome.
• Application deadline: 20 May 2026
• Workshop dates: 17–18 November 2026 (9:00-16:00, tentative)

Description

This is a follow-up workshop to the one held in 2025, introducing new topics and methods. Participants who attended the 2025 edition are welcome to apply again.

Over two days, participants will:

1. Review the latest evidence on the health impacts of climate extremes.
2. Understand why studying these impacts is critical for public health.
3. Learn to identify, measure, and model the health effects of environmental stressors, gaining robust methodological skills for their own research.

The workshop is organized and funded by the Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes (climes) in collaboration with the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet and Human Technopole (Zuccolo Group – Human Technopole).

Tentative Schedule

Lectures: Daily thematic sessions on the impacts of climate extremes and their effects on population health including methods to study sensitive periods and to analyse multiple environmental exposures simultaneously.

Exercises: Hands-on, application-oriented sessions focusing on methodological practice, including the use of Distributed Lag Non-linear Models (DLNMs) to investigate sensitive periods and multiple exposures.

Application Details

Requirements

1. Complete the application form.
2. Submit a short motivation letter (max 1 page) describing your current position, research interests, and reasons for attending.
3. Provide a brief letter of support from your doctoral supervisor, postdoctoral advisor, or another senior scientist confirming their support for your participation.

Selection Criteria

Relevance of motivation to the workshop’s scope.

Potential benefit to the applicant’s research.

Timeliness for the applicant’s career stage.

Required Applicant Details

Full name and affiliation

Contact details

Career stage (Master’s student, doctoral student, postdoctoral researcher, research assistant)

Motivation letter (max 1 page)

Letter of support

Target Group

PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and research assistants (particularly those based in Sweden).

Applicants from diverse academic backgrounds including medical, social, climate, and data sciences are encouraged to apply.

Master’s students with relevant backgrounds may also apply.

Intermediate R skills are essential for the hands-on sessions.

Organizing Team

Workshop Co-Leader: Dr Elena Raffetti, Assistant Professor, Karolinska Institutet; Deputy Director, Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes (CLIMES). Medical doctor with expertise in health data science and socio-environmental extreme events, specialising in large-scale population health data.

Workshop Co-Leader: Dr Luisa Zuccolo, Research Group Leader, Health Data Science Centre, Human Technopole (Milan, Italy). Epidemiologist researching maternal, child, and women’s health using large-scale population data and causal inference approaches.

Dr Albert Navarro Gallinad, Health Data Science Centre, Human Technopole (Milan, Italy). Data scientist studying how environmental exposures affect vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, by integrating electronic health records, environmental data, omics, and policy information.

Valeria Nazzari, PhD Student, Human Technopole (Milan, Italy). Background in epidemiology and biostatistics; researching the impacts of environmental exposures on maternal and child health.

Manuel Martellini O. Nocentini, PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet. Background in statistics; researching the impacts of climate extremes during early life.

Ricardo Berenguer Navarro, PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet. Background in biostatistics; researching future risks of climate extremes for population health.

Edoardo Pavoni, Project Coordinator, Karolinska Institutet. Organisational and logistical support.

Sakıp Murat Yalçın, Project Coordinator, Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes (climes), Uppsala University. Organisational and logistical support.

Application

• The workshop is free to attend and covers all sessions.
• An intermediate knowledge of R is required.
• Priority will be given to participants residing in Sweden, but applications from outside Sweden are welcome.
• Application Deadline: 20 June 2025
• Workshop dates: 1-2 October 2025 

Description

• Two day workshop focused on epidemiological and biostatistical methods to investigate how climate extremes and climate factors influence population health. 
• Participants will learn:
  • 1) the current evidence of the impact of climate extremes on health,
  • 2) why it is important to study this topic,
  • 3) how to identify, measure, and model the health effects of environmental stressors, gaining a strong methodological foundation to apply in their own research. 
• The workshop is organized and founded by the Swedish Center of Impacts from Climate Extremes In collaboration with the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet.

Tentative schedule

Day 1

• Morning (09:00–12:00)
  • Lecture (09:00–09:50): Overview of Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate
    Speaker: Gabriele Messori
  • Lecture (09:50–10:40): Impacts of Climate Extremes on Population Health
    Speaker: Elena Raffetti
  • Coffee break (10:40–11:00)
  • Lecture (11:00–11:30): Availability of Climatic Data
    Speaker: Shivang Pandey
  • Lecture (11:30–12:00): Linking Climate Data with Health Data
    Speaker: Alexia Sampri
    
• Afternoon (13:00–16:00)
  • Hands-on Lab Exercise (13:00–16:00) Preparing geospatial dataLinking geospatial data to health data
    Led by: Shivang Pandey, Alexia Sampri

Day 2

• Afternoon (9:00–12:00)
  • Lecture (09:00–10:00): Modeling Associations Between Climatic Factors & Health Outcomes Using Aggregated-Level Data
    Speaker: Blanca Paniello Castillo
  • Hands-on Lab Exercise (10:00–12:00)
    Led by: Blanca Paniello Castillo, Ricardo Berenguer Navarro, Elena Raffetti
    Practical examples of aggregated-level data analysis
• Afternoon (13:00–16:00)
  • Lecture (13:00–14:00): Modeling Associations Between Climatic Factors & Health Outcomes Using Individual-Level Data
    Speakers: Isabel Walter,
  • Hands-on Lab Exercise (14:00–16:00) Led by: Isabel Walter, Manuel Martellini O Nocentini, Elena Raffetti
    Examples of individual-level modeling (case time series, Cox models)

Application details

General

• Application Requirements
  1. Fill out the application form.
  2. Provide a brief motivation letter outlining your current position, research interests, and reasons for taking this course.
• Selection Criteria
  1. Relevance of motivation to the course scope.
  2. Potential benefit for the applicant’s research.
  3. Timeliness for the applicant’s career development.

Required applicant details

• Name, surname and affiliation
• Contact details
• Career stage (master student, doctoral student, postdoc, research assistant)
• A brief motivation (max 1 page) for attending the course
• A letter from your doctoral supervisor, postdoctoral advisor, or another senior scientist you are working with or have recently worked with that they are supporting the participation to the course.

Target group

• PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and research assistants (particularly those residing in Sweden).
• Suitable for diverse backgrounds: medical, social, climate, and data sciences.
• Participants completing a Master’s degree or working in related fields are also encouraged to apply.
• Intermediate R skills are essential for hands-on exercises.

Organizing Team

• Workshop leader Elena Raffetti (Assistant Professor, Karolinska Institutet)
  Deputy director of the Swedish Center of Impacts of Climate Extremes. Medical doctor with expertise in health data science, focusing on socio-environmental extreme events and working with large-scale population data.
• Workshop co-leader Gabriele Messori (Professor Uppsala University)
  Director of the Swedish Center of Impacts of Climate Extremes; studies past, present, and future climate extremes and their impacts.
• Shivang Pandey (PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet)
  Geospatial data scientist working optimizing climate-health biostatistical methods.
• Alexia Sampri (Reserch Associate, University of Cambridge)
  Background in health data science and environmental engineering, with research on population health outcomes, mainly focused on cardiovascular diseases, using whole-population health data.
• Isabel Walter (PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet)
  Background in medicine and epidemiology, researching the health impact of non-optimal air temperatures on impacts at individual level.
• Manuel Martellini O Nocentini (PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet)
  Background in statistics, researching the impact of climate extremes and climatic factors during early life.
• Blanca Paniello Castillo (PhD Student, ISGlobal Barcelona)
  Background in biomedical sciences and epidemiology, studying socio-economic drivers of temperature-related mortality in Europe.
• Ricardo Berenguer Navarro (PhD Student, Karolinska Institutet
  Background in biostatistics, researching the future risks of climate extremes and climatic factors on population health.
• Edoardo Pavoni (Project Coordinator, Karolinska Institutet)
  Provides organizational support for the workshop.
• Sakıp Murat Yalçın (Project Coordinator, Climes, Uppsala Universitet)
  Provides organizational support for the workshop-

Contact

• For more information about the application process, schedule, or any other inquiries, please contact:
  elena.raffetti@ki.se (Workshop leader)
  edoardo.pavoni@ki.se (Workshop Coordination Support)
  sakip_murat.yalcin@geo.uu.se (Climes Project Coordinator)

Participants will gain a foundational understanding of key AI techniques—including Large Language Models (LLMs)—and get hands-on experience with practical tools through guided exercises.

🍂 17 – 18 September 2025
🚩 Blåsenhus
🏫 Uppsala University 

Lecture Hall: Eva Netzelius

Application

• Application Deadline: Application closed
• Notification of Acceptance: 8 July 2025
• Course Dates: 17–18 September 2025
  The course is free to attend.
  Climes-affiliated researchers will be given priority in the selection process. 
• Please note: A no-show fee of 1000 SEK will be invoiced to your home institution if you do not attend and fail to unregister via email at least 3 weeks prior to the course start.
• Who can apply:
  Doctoral students, postdocs, and early-career professionals with basic programming skills.
  No prior AI experience is required.

Description

• The Short Course on Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Data will immerse researchers in the latest AI techniques for extracting knowledge from e.g. texts, satellite imagery and in-situ measurements.
• Building on the complementary work of Olof Mogren—deep-learning methods for biodiversity monitoring, remote-sensing and soundscape analysis—and Murathan Kurfalı—multilingual large-language-model (LLM) pipelines for analysing textual data—the course blends theory with hands-on coding labs, giving participants practical skills they can transfer directly to their own projects.

Prel.Schedule

Day 1 — Wednesday, 17 September 2025

10:00–12:00

• Introduction to AI and Machine Learning — Olof Mogren
• Introduction and Brief History of Natural Language Processing (NLP) — Murathan Kurfalı

12:00–13:00

• Lunch

13:00–14:00

• AI for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation — Olof Mogren

14:00–17:00

• Introduction to Exercise (potentially “Greenwashing Classification”) — Murathan Kurfalı

Day 2 — Thursday, 18 September 2025

10:00–12:00

• AI for Environmental Monitoring — Olof Mogren
• AI for Prediction and Earth System Modelling — Olof Mogren

12:00–13:00

• Lunch

13:00–14:00

• Using NLP and Large Language Models: General Concepts and Climate Applications — Murathan Kurfalı

14:00–17:00

• Exercises: The planned exercises, subject to final confirmation, will provide participants with practical experience across diverse AI applications for environmental data. These might include greenwashing classification using natural language processing, land use classification via computer vision, anomaly detection from satellite imagery, and information extraction from climate-related data such as weather reports.

Course Leaders

• Olof Mogren, Research Director, RISE; co-founder, Climate AI Nordics.
  View bio
• Murathan Kurfalı, Researcher, RISE/Stockholm University; developer of multilingual discourse models and co-creator of the Wikimpacts climate-impact database.
  View bio

Contact

• For more information about the application process, schedule, or any other inquiries, please contact:
  olof.mogren@ri.se (Workshop leader)
  murathan.kurfali@ri.se (Workshop Leader)
  sakip_murat.yalcin@geo.uu.se (Climes Project Coordinator)