18 Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Hamburg, Germany

The position is associated with Prof Dr Eray Çaylı’s professorship which focuses on Violence and Security in the Anthropocene. While both the professorship and this post are interdisciplinary, they both have a number of empirical and methodological foci that are prioritized and that include the following: Spatial politics; Qualitative methods; Racialized, classed and/or gendered underpinnings and consequences of climate change and environmental disasters with a view towards social justice; Turkey, its environs, and their diasporas. The postdoc is expected to plan, develop and conduct research projects with these foci in mind, as well as disseminating findings from their recent and ongoing research projects (through publications and conference attendance). Application for funding to undertake independent projects, possibly in collaboration with other universities or partners, will be supported. Besides independent research, the position involves 4 LVS (“semester hours”) of teaching per week in English. The teaching duties will be linked to the lecture course “Critical Approaches to the Anthropocene” (Master level) and the seminar course “Urban Geography” (Bachelor level) both based at the Institute for Geography. The position benefits from relevant research clusters and initiatives at the university, with which Prof Çaylı is affiliated, including the profile initiative “Violence and Security” and the Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS). Where relevant, the postdoc will be expected to contribute to the organization of academic and/or public-facing events, such as lecture series, symposia, and conferences.

Doctoral research associates will conduct cutting-edge research and duties include the development of algorithms, the writing of scientific publications and the presentation at international conferences. They will be embedded in a highly international and interdisciplinary research environment that includes the Department of Physics, DESY, The Centre for Data and Computing in the Natural Sciences (CDCS), and the Cluster of Excellence “Quantum Universe”. The University hosts one of the biggest physics departments in the country and provides state-of-the-art computing infrastructure. Doctoral research associates will have access to fund for travel and may participate in teaching at the University.

The successful candidate will be enrolled in the Cluster’s graduate school and participate in research colloquia, lectures and workshops. Furthermore, the position includes active engagement in the research fields “Multigraphic Written Artefacts” and/or “Multilingual Written Artefacts”, which in turn offer a great opportunity of working in an inspiring interdisciplinary team and to join the collaborative research activities of the Cluster. For further information, see https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/written-artefacts.html.

The research associate will study the impact of nutrient availability, particularly nitrogen, on plant productivity and carbon fluxes in permafrost-affected soils. Of particular interest is the link between nutrient fluxes (e.g. from N2-fixation) and carbon fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. This research will be based on a combination of Arctic field studies and controlled laboratory experiments and analysis. Element fluxes between soil, vegetation and atmosphere as well as the impact of microbial processes will be quantified under natural and highly controlled laboratory conditions using stable isotope techniques, incubations of soil mesocosms under a controlled climate, soil chemical and physical analysis and greenhouse gas flux measurements in the field and the laboratory. The fieldwork will be conducted in close cooperation with further researchers in the project.

The research associate will study the influence of dynamic hydrological conditions on carbon fluxes of heterogenous upland tundra landscapes of Greenland. The research should cover hydrology effects on both vertical land-atmosphere fluxes of greenhouse gases and lateral waterborne carbon and nutrient fluxes. The study will combine field monitoring of soil hydrology and oxygen availability, dissolved carbon and nutrient contents in discharge waters and land-atmosphere fluxes of greenhouse gases with catchment-scale hydrological modelling. Land-atmosphere gas fluxes will be investigated with closed chamber methodology. The most suitable hydrological modelling strategy wil be determined together with the selected postdoctoral scientist.

The project aims to elucidate the evolution of plant parasitic smut fungi with respect to morphology, mode of interaction and comparative genomics. The project focuses on the Ustilaginaceae (Basidiomycota) on Poaceae and has a special focus on hybridization. An additional focus is the analysis of the evolution of effector genes potentially relevant for the parasitic interaction. The applicant will be responsible for the collection, cultivation, genome sequencing and comparative analyses of all data. The position is suitable to obtain a PhD. The project is intended for prolongation.

The project aims to elucidate the evolution of plant parasitic smut fungi with respect to morphology, mode of interaction and comparative genomics. The project focuses on the Antracoidea (Basidiomycota) on Carex and has a special focus on host specificity. An additional focus is the analysis of the evolution of effector genes potentially relevant for the parasitic interaction. The applicant will be responsible for the collection, cultivation, genome sequencing and comparative analyses of all data. The position is suitable to obtain a PhD. The project is intended for prolongation.

The Cluster of Excellence “Quantum Universe” performs research to understand mass and gravity at the interface between quantum physics and cosmology. The research team includes leading scientists from mathematics, particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology at Universität Hamburg and DESY. Topics will include Higgs and axion cosmology, early universe, dark matter, baryogenesis, cosmological phase transitions at the electroweak scale and beyond, gravitational-wave signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model, predictions of spectra of primordial origin. Doctoral research associates will become members of the Quantum Universe Research School (QURS), which provides academic and soft skills training, as well as career planning support. In addition, they will receive individual budgets to facilitate the attendance of summer schools and conferences, and to support other educational measures. Additional travel money for project-specific duties will be provided by the hosting research groups. Doctoral research associates may participate in teaching at the University and in the organization of the Cluster via an early career council.

We are opening a new post doctoral position in the attosecond science team at the Center for Free Electron Laser (CFEL) science in Hamburg. In the CFEL-ATTO group we develop advanced attosecond technology with the aim of tracking and controlling electron dynamics in matter. More specifically, our technology allows us to follow charge migration occurring on a few femtosecond time scale in bio-chemically relevant molecules. In this context, the postdoc will have to finalize the realization of a UV-pump soft-x probe setup to perform attosecond time resolved measurements in the building blocks of life. The soft-x beamline will be combined with both a liquid jet for transient absorption measurements and electron/ions spectrometers for charged particles detection.