09 Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Sussex, East Sussex, United Kingdom

A Research Fellow position is available in the laboratory of Tom Baden to work towards understanding of the evolution of neural systems in response to anthropogenic change through ancestral resurrected crustacean. We will use the planktonic crustacean Daphnia that serves as an important indicator organism for environmental freshwater quality. The project will make use of models of environmental sewage and pesticide decontamination in once-pristine lake systems before, during, and after anthropogenic contamination, and will attempt to shed light on adaptive evolution in the Daphnia nervous system using pre-existing resurrected specimens from these different timepoints. In this project we also propose additional assays using 2D or 3D tracking software to examine behavioural changes to ambient light conditions associated with environmental water quality changes. Neuronal responses to light and chemical cues in sensory organs will be tested with high spatiotemporal resolution and compared in live Daphnia from different timepoints after injection with genetically encoded calcium indicators.

The School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex is at the forefront of research in the UK. In the recent Research Excellence Framework assessment (REF 2021), 100% of our Impact cases in Biological Sciences and Chemistry were rated as world-leading or internationally excellent. The School has received substantial recent University investment and is embarking on an exciting and extensive, muti-million pound refurbishment and improvement project. We wish to appoint a Postdoctoral Researcher funded by LifeArc to identify non-coding RNAs (ncRNA, e.g. microRNA) in blood, which have potential as biomarkers in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; motor neurone disease, MND). This exciting project will utilise the novel TaqMan RT-qPCR Low Density Arrays and digital PCR technology to detect previously identified small ncRNAs in a cohort of blood plasma from ALS patients and controls and validate their potential as ALS biomarkers.

The Schröder Lab at the University of Sussex, UK, offers a position for a Postdoctoral researcher funded by the Wellcome Trust for the duration of 12 months. The successful candidate will study information processing in the early visual system of mice using electrophysiology (Neuropixels probes), opto- and chemogenetic manipulations. The lab’s goal is to determine how behavioural and internal states like arousal are integrated with visual responses in the retina and superior colliculus. We want to discover the purpose of this integration in terms of visual processing and the animal’s behavioural demands, as well as the mechanisms underlying this integration. We expect that the researcher takes ownership of the project and drives it forward. The successful candidate has a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, has experience in experimental visual neuroscience and core skills in quantitative data analysis and programming in Python.

This project aims to develop innovative, sustainable coatings using lignin, a renewable bio-resource, thereby contributing significantly to materials science and environmental sustainability. The post is to lead research in developing lignin-based coatings. Analyze and interpret data, prepare scientific reports, and publish in leading journals. Present findings at national and international conferences. Collaborate within a multidisciplinary team.

We are seeking applications for a 1-year post-doctoral position to work in the field of chemical applications of plasmas in collaboration with Biaco Ltd. The successful candidate will be located primarily at Biaco and jointly supervised by faculty in the Department of Chemistry and the Chief Technical Officer of Biaco Ltd. 

The Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC) at the University of Sussex is seeking to appoint a highly talented and motivated researcher to join the Centre’s “Governance” theme, and the “Political feasibility and readiness to act” project. This interdisciplinary post-Doctoral position will focus on structures and outcomes of energy decision-making across two streams of work: a) co-creating political feasibility for energy demand reduction policies, and; 2) creating participatory governance models that prioritise energy demand reduction and better suit emerging hybrid centralised/decentralised energy systems. Through a mixed methods approach involving literature reviews, co-productive and transdisciplinary workshops with policy professionals, interviews, policy Delphis, Q-sorts and other engagement and methodological tools, the fellowship aims to develop novel conceptual and immediately practicable understanding of the political feasibility of energy demand reduction, and of energy governance models appropriate for encouraging energy demand reduction. These insights will be of core relevance to the EDRC consortium and in developing public policy to stimulate energy demand reduction. 

We are seeking a Research Fellow (RF) to undertake climate change analysis as part of the research project ‘CLARITY’ (CLimate Adaptation and Resilience In Tropical drYlands). CLARITY is an interdisciplinary research project exploring pathways towards equitable, sustainable and climate-resilient development of water resources in tropical drylands. The project consortium involves research teams in India, Tanzania, Niger, Nigeria and the UK, and is focused on three study sites or ‘Transformation labs’ indicative of diverse environments and complex challenges of rural/urban water resilience under rapid development.  CLARITY is funded through Climate Adaptation and Resilience programme (CLARE, https://clareprogramme.org/ ) funded by the UK FCDO/Canadian IDRC.  The project team will work with a wide range of stakeholders to co-create and evaluate a set of water resource development ‘pathways’, including both surface and groundwater, under contrasting trajectories of wider development drivers. These will then be modelled using a dryland hydrological model to assess their resilience to current and future climate, their sustainability and their implications for water resource equity. 

Trapped ions are one of the most mature implementations to deliver practical quantum technologies. We have developed a unique approach for trapped-ion quantum computing that enables scaling to a large number of qubits. The approach couples scalable global microwave based quantum gate technology with fully integrated quantum computing microchip modules that can be linked together using fast electric field links. This position is part of a larger effort to develop and operate quantum computing solutions which scale to significantly larger system sizes. We currently operate 5 quantum computer prototypes in our lab and the position will focus on one or multiple of these experimental setups directed towards the implementation of quantum error correction, ion transport and quantum gate execution, raising gate fidelities, operation of multi-module quantum computing prototypes and the development of quantum computing microchips.