'How do you find ideas for your research?'

In the past, some peers asked me that question. As students, these questions occur when we are preparing for our dissertation. I spent some time in February 2026 to reflect on it because Tri, a friend from my undergrad, asked me about it. Being in ICTP and surrounded by great colleagues gave me a clearer perspective on it.

We agree that reading as many papers about our field is the best start. We can start by a topic or a researcher, then see what they are doing. The aim is to expand our knowledge about the field and to know the questions that people are trying to answer now and the state-of-art methods.

Looking back at what I did for my undergraduate thesis, I exactly did that. I like to make these tables with three columns: the title of the paper or media, short summary, and key points. The idea is to track my impression of the papers and what I learned from it.

Finaly, my personal approach is to always look for current urgent problem in my life. Back in undergraduate study, I was following the news of Jakarta being the most polluted city in the world. It led to the topic of transboundary pollution and somehow I ended up learning on regional transboundary pollution.

Moving forward to my research project in ICTP, I gave my best to be mindful in choosing my research topic. I wrote down my reflection as motivation on April 4, 2026:

As the diploma programme under Earth System Physics is ending, we are expected to perform a research project for effectively three months. I have always been a late bloomer in terms of synthesizing which topic that I care about the most. In March of 2026, I kept thinking of how lucky I am that my problem right now is caring about too many topics introduced by the scientists here. During the same period, I also often think about “what is the research that I care about?” and “How to identify a research question that is actually useful and what we need?”

A strong signal kept appearing. Erika mentioned attribution study in Earth System Modelling course and I was surprised that I did not know about this before. I find this study as a way to actually identify how anthropogenic-caused climate change amplified certain phenomena or extreme variables. It is interesting for the same reason that tipping point study is interesting to me. Tipping point studies a certain threshold in our climate system, such that sudden irreversible change could happening. These changes affect human life directly and I find it important to explore these studies that seem to have concrete effects on us.

During a class with Adrian on Data Analysis, he briefly mentioned the caution we need in performing attribution study. Surely, this topic needs more care than what I might have understood now with my humble and brief time knowing it. After being exposed again to air pollution with Andrea, I was reminded of my past fixation on pollution issues in Jakarta and Southeast Asia. Looking at my past thesis, I see how I have always hoped that there is a direct intersection between mathematics, Earth science, and public policy. This is because I hope to see a tangible study that can be applied by stakeholders–to not stop in the theory.

With this in mind, I know for sure I wish to explore attribution study, which relates also to study of extreme events projection and compound event study. Additionally, a particular focus on tangible application for stakeholders should be my challenge now. Two main questions need to be thought of: (a) Does climate change induce this extreme phenomena? (b) What changes (e.g design variables) that stakeholders need to update knowing this?

After writing this motivation, I reached out to my potential supervisor and discussed my interest in extreme attribution study focusing on the most high impact event in Indonesia during my stay in Trieste, the 2025 Sumatra flash floods. After defending my work, I am happy to realize that I was able to maintain my vision until the end.

I don’t think I have the best and complete answer to the first question. However, I am proud of my past works and I like to think that these reflections are enough. Maybe I really should discuss this more too with my peers and teachers.