Sara M. Vallejo-Bernal

AS Atmospheric Sciences

The 2025 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Sara M. Vallejo-Bernal for the poster/PICO entitled:

Atmospheric Rivers as Interacting Elements of the Earth System: A Complexity Science Perspective (Vallejo-Bernal, S. M.; Braun, T.; Marwan, N.; Bastos, A.; Mahecha, M. D.; Kurths, J.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Sara M. Vallejo-Bernal received her PhD in Geoscience from the University of Potsdam in July 2025 after completing her doctoral research at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Earth System Science and Remote Sensing at Leipzig University. Her research focuses on investigating the dynamics and impacts of atmospheric rivers through the lens of complexity science.

In her work presented at EGU25, Sara examined the role of atmospheric rivers in the occurrence of heavy precipitation events and precipitation-induced landslides in North America. By leveraging tools from nonlinear dynamics, probabilistic causality, and climate networks, she offered a perspective on understanding atmospheric rivers as interacting elements of the Earth system.