The Artificial Intelligence for Weather and Climate Autumn School (AIWCAS) aims to equip participants with both fundamental and specialized skills in leveraging AI for meteorological and climatological applications.

Given the growing interest and success in AI-driven approaches to environmental science, we are excited to announce the third edition of the school, AIWCAS 2026, scheduled from October 26 to 29, 2026, at the Bruno Kessler Foundation - ECT* headquarters. This intensive four-day program will offer a blend of face-to-face lectures and hands-on application labs designed to foster a deep understanding of AI methodologies in the context of weather and climate science.

AIWCAS 2026 will offer a class of 25 students face-to-face lectures and application labs to acquire basic and advanced skills in using artificial intelligence methods in weather and climate science.

We invite applications for this unique educational opportunity, where participants will gain cutting-edge knowledge and skills at the intersection of AI and environmental science. Join us in this journey to harness the power of artificial intelligence for advancing our understanding and ability to predict weather and climate phenomena.

International Speakers

Umberto Modigliani

Deputy Director of Forecasts, ECMWF

Umberto Modigliani is the Deputy Director of Forecasts at ECMWF, where he co-manages a 200-person department responsible for 24/7 computer-based forecasts, observation management, and key initiatives like Copernicus and Destination Earth. His role involves extensive international engagement and reporting on plans and progress to ECMWF's governing bodies.

Lauren Biermann

AI/ML Applications Expert, EUMETSAT

Lauren Biermann is an AI/ML Applications Expert in the Climate Services Team at EUMETSAT, working at the interface of Earth Observation, ML, and user engagement. She is active on the E-AI Data Curation Working Group and is progressing development of the FeatureSpace, a collaborative expert-labelling platform for ML on the European Weather Cloud.

Francesco Zanetta

MeteoSwiss

Francesco Zanetta comes from a mixed background of atmospheric sciences and machine learning, and now works with the team that is developing the future operational AI-based regional weather forecasting model at MeteoSwiss. He actively contributes to the development of the Anemoi framework.

Michele Cattaneo

Data Scientist, Swiss Data Science Center (ETH)

Michele holds an MSc in Artificial Intelligence and is broadly interested in machine learning methods for graph-structured and temporal data, with a focus on scientific domains like meteorology. He is a Data Scientist at the Swiss Data Science Center, where he primarily works on a project with MeteoSwiss aiming to developing and training deep learning models able to perform high spatial and temporal resolution regional forecasting.

National Speakers

Natale Alberto Carrassi

University of Bologna

Natale Alberto Carrassi is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna and Visiting Professor at the University of Reading (UK). His research focuses on data assimilation for climate applications, connecting it with dynamical systems and machine learning. He is co-PI of the Scale Aware Sea Ice Project (SASIP) and Director of the Alma Mater Research Institute on Global Challenges and Climate Change.

Eleonora Bergamaschi

CINECA

Eleonora Bergamaschi, HPC Data Scientist at CINECA. She works on projects that leverage classical machine learning and deep learning models within the HPC infrastructure across different application domains.

Schedule

Application

Applications for AIWCAS 2026 are now open. Please fill the form below and submit your application by August 31st, 2026 September 7th, 2026.

The submission must consist of a single PDF file that includes an updated CV (2 pages) and a Cover Letter (1 page).

IMPORTANT NOTE: your application WILL NOT be processed if we DO NOT RECEIVE both CV and Cover Letter before the deadline. Applications missing such documents will be considered NOT VALID.

We will announce the results to all applicants a week after the deadline, i.e., by September 15, 2026.

Selection Process

The Scientific Committee will evaluate each application and rank the applicants. After this first phase, you will receive a notification of acceptance or placed on the waiting list.

If your application is accepted, you will receive new instructions on finalizing the registration and confirming participation.

Useful Information for Attendees

Getting to Trento

The school will take place in Trento, a city nestled in the heart of the Italian Alps in North-Eastern Italy. You can find various travel options to reach Trento at visittrento.it.

Accommodation Options

For more options, including additional hotels and B&Bs, visit the VisitTrento Website.

Event Venue and Transportation

The school will be hosted at ECT* - Villa Tambosi, one of the three main FBK premises, located in Villazzano on the hillside of Trento. Villa Tambosi is easily accessible by bus using the following routes:

Trento’s urban transport system is operated by Trentino Trasporti Spa. Tickets (starting from €1.50) must be purchased before boarding and validated upon boarding. You can buy physical tickets at a tobacco shop, a news stand, or on board the bus. Online tickets can be purchased via one of these mobile apps: OpenMove (recommended), DropTicket, 360PASS, MioTrentino, or MooneyGo (myCicero).

Organised by

FBK

Partners

CINECA

With the contribution of

IT4LIA AI Factory

Privacy Notice

Pursuant to art. 13 of EU Regulation No. 2016/679 – General Data Protection Regulation and as detailed in the Privacy Policy for FBK event’s participants, we inform you that the event may be recorded and disclosed on the FBK institutional channels. In order not to be filmed or recorded, you can always disable the webcam and/or mute the microphone during virtual events or inform the FBK staff who organize the event beforehand.