First undergraduate student from Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute begins a research internship at CMCC in Bologna.

The CMCC Foundation has welcomed its first undergraduate intern from Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI), marking the launch of a new exchange program aimed at fostering young scientific talent and deepening research collaboration on climate and environmental issues.

Lucia Achucarro, a third-year bachelor’s student at Princeton, has been selected for an internship programme under a HMEI-CMCC collaboration project named “Cyclones on the Southern European Seas with a Regional Coupled Ocean-Atmospheric Model.” This initiative is a joint effort involving different research projects and groups at CMCC, focused on investigating the coupled dynamics of ocean and atmosphere during the formation of extratropical cyclones in the Southern European seas.

During the internship, Achucarro analyzes how atmospheric and oceanic variables evolve over time as cyclones pass through the region, assessing whether coupled regional ocean-atmosphere models offer improved forecasting capabilities compared to uncoupled models.

The internship is conducted under the supervision of Emanuela Clementi, director of Regional Ocean Forecasting Systems at CMCC and tutored by Francesco Maicu, with additional involvement from CMCC scientists Enrico Scoccimarro and Silvio Gualdi.

“It is a great opportunity and a pleasure for us to collaborate on such an important topic for the Southern European region, and we truly appreciate Lucia’s enthusiasm and engagement with the project,” said Maicu. “Although she is still early in her academic journey, she is already demonstrating strong scientific and technical skills, as well as a high degree of independence in carrying out her tasks. This is a further demonstration of the high quality education that Princeton University provides to its students.”

This collaboration highlights the commitment of both institutions to nurturing emerging researchers and strengthening scientific exchange at the international level.