Dr. Nicola Botta

Senior Scientist

I am a senior scientist at PIK and adjunct professor (2019-2025) in the FP division, at the CSE Department, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. 

Department

Contact

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
T +49 (0)331 288 2657
Nicola.Botta[at]pik-potsdam.de
P.O. Box 60 12 03
14412 Potsdam

ORCID

I apply type theory, generic programming and program verification to climate science. I have active collaborations with N. Brede and T. Richter (Potsdam University), P. Jansson and T.-M. Fülöp (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden) and C. Ionescu (THD, Deggendorf, Germany). I am a developer of IdrisLibs and of the verified framework for sequential decision problems IdrisLibs/SequentialDecisionProblems. I have worked on agent based models of exchange economies with A. Mandel (CES, Paris, France) and on numerical methods for partial differential equations with R. Klein (FU-Berlin, Berlin, Germany). I have obtained a PhD from the Department of Engineering of the ETH Zürich.

In preparation:

  • Optimization under uncertainty. Nicola Botta, Patrik Jansson. 2024
  • Robust multi-objective optimization. Patrik Jansson et al. 2024

Recent submissions

  • Types, equations, dimensions and the Pi theorem. Nicola Botta et al. 2023, Journal of Functional Programming download.

Recent publications

  • How short-term policies affect humanity’s long-term scope of action. Marina Martínez Montero et al. Oxford Open Climate Change, 2024, download.
  • Extensional Equality Preservation in Intensional MLTT. Nuria Brede et al. Accepted contribution to the 29th International Conference on Types for Proofs and Programs, June 2023.
  • Perspectives on adaptive dynamical systems. Jakub Sawicki et al. Chaos, 2023 download.
  • Responsibility Under Uncertainty: Which Climate Decisions Matter Most? N. Botta, N. Brede, M. Crucifix, C. Ionescu, P. Jansson, Z. Li, M. Martínez-Montero, T. Richter. Environmental Modeling & Assessment, 2023 download.
  • ECOD: Unsupervised Outlier Detection Using Empirical Cumulative Distribution Functions. Zheng Li, Yue Zhao, Xiyang Hu, Nicola Botta, Cezar Ionescu, George Chen. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2022, download.
  • On the correctness of monadic backward induction. N. Brede, N. Botta. Journal of Functional Programming, Volume 31, 2021, download.
  • Extensional equality preservation and verified generic programming. N. Botta, N. Brede, P. Jansson, T. Richter. Journal of Functional Programming, Volume 31, 2021, download

Further publications:

  • I am a member of the COMET (Computational methods and visualization) unit and a developer of IdrisLibs.
  • I am responsible for Theme 4 (Data and Decisions) and for deliverables D6.1 and D6.2 of the EU Horizon 2020 TiPES project.
  • I am working with Patrik Jansson, Nick Smallbone (CSE, FP) and with the Plasma theory group at Chalmers University of Technology on the mitigation of runaway currents in tokamak fusion devices.

  • 2024: Functional Programming and Climate Impact Research (Chalmers University of Technology), FPClimate.
  • 2022: Four guest lectures on climate policy, mathematical specifications, dependent types and verified decision making at THD (Technische Hochschule Deggendorf), THD SS 2022.
  • 2022: Two guest lectures at Chalmers University of Technology Domain-Specific Languages of Mathematics.
  • Ongoing: Cartesian Seminar, see CS@uni-potsdam and CS@github.
  • 2019-2020: Introduction to functional languages and to dependently typed languages; theory of optimal decision making under uncertainty for finite horizon sequential decision problems; policy, policy sequences and value functions; optimality, viability and reachability; uncertainty measures and possible trajectories. Given at UCLouvain in Nov. 2019 (20 hours) and March 2020 (20 hours) as TiPES deliverable D6.1, regular lectures, extra lectures).

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