Postdoctoral Fellowship (10) at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Physical activity can contribute to, but also threaten health and well-being, depending on how it is organized. The interdisciplinary project offers a unique opportunity to explore fundamental questions about physical activity for sports and companion animals, to be able to provide future recommendations for a healthy life. In addition, the project provides an opportunity to study training in pain assessment and investigate which technologies are relevant for future animal health care. As a postdoctoral position in the project, you will conduct analyses of published data or via data collections in collaboration with experts from other European countries.

The department is looking for a research engineer who will work on research and development projects involving sensors, data processing, and advanced technical equipment, with the aim of improving analyses of individual trees and their attributes. The work includes studies of forest variables, ecosystem services, and analyses based on many different sensors and platforms. The tasks are technical in nature and include installation and management of sensors, processing of field and remote sensing data, modeling and statistical analysis of relationships between remote sensing data and field inventories, as well as evaluation and communication of results – both scientifically and for a general audience. The position also involves some fieldwork, as well as responsibility for and management of laboratory equipment such as drones and various measurement sensors. You will work in close collaboration with researchers across the department’s different projects.

Biocontrol is seen as a cornerstone of sustainable plant protection. However, there are many knowledge gaps in relation to the use of microbial biocontrol agents (BCAs) for the control of plant diseases. We are interested in whether plant pathogens can evolve resistance or tolerance to microbial BCAs and if so, what are the mechanisms behind this? Using the model plant pathogens Botrytis cinerea and Phytophthora infestans we will investigate their immune reactions and evolutionary responses to experimental selection by biocontrol agents including Aureobasidium pullulans and Pythium oligandrum.

You will be part of a collegial interdisciplinary team working on integrated plant protection both molecular mechanistic and eco-evolutionary perspectives. You will be responsible for designing, developing, conducting, and analysing experiments, which will include small scale field and greenhouse trials, as well as in depth molecular, biochemical and microbiological studies. Duties include writing scientific manuscripts, presenting project outcomes at conferences and workshops, applying for grants, and supervising bachelor or master’s students as and when the opportunity arises.

A postdoctoral position in plant molecular biology and genetics is available at Prof. Markus Schmid’s group at the Swedish University of Agriculture (SLU) in Uppsala, Sweden. Research in the Schmid lab focuses on the regulation of RNA splicing and how it contributes to temperature acclimation in plants. The project will employ a high-throughput screening method developed in the Schmid lab (Collani et al., submitted) to define the protein-protein interaction network of Arabidopsis thaliana RNA splicing proteins and its connection with other cellular machineries, determine the effect of temperature on the splicing capacity of plant cells, and study factors that modulate splicing in response to temperature. We anticipate that our study will provide valuable insights into the role of RNA splicing in temperature acclimation and generate new tools to use RNA splicing for the improvement of plant resistance to temperature changes. Results from this project will contribute to mitigating the plants’ reactions to environmental changes and thus to establishing sustainable agriculture.

This postdoctoral scholarship offers an exciting opportunity to work at the intersection of microbial genomics, plant pathology, and sustainable agriculture. The project aims to identify elite strains of the yeast-like biocontrol fungus Aureobasidium pullulans for sustainable and environmentally safe control of grey mould (Botrytis cinerea) in strawberry. The position focuses on uncovering the population genomic and functional basis of strain-level variation in biocontrol efficacy.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work with whole-genome sequencing data from over 200 A. pullulans strains, isolated from wild strawberries collected from diverse geographic locations across Europe. The work will include pan-genome and population structure analyses, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and the integration of transcriptomic and phenotypic data to identify candidate genes linked to biocontrol traits. Functional validation through gene expression profiling and phenotypic assays will also be part of the role.

Can we foresee the outcomes of public policies, political choices and other decisions? We are finding out by developing serious games and running them using AI.

We are building large-scale simulations of societal processes (environmental negotiations, nature conservation policies, and hybrid-threat scenarios) in which every actor is an autonomous AI agent powered by Large Language Models (LLMs). These agents simulate real-world stakeholders, from government ministers to interest groups, and interact through natural language in complex strategic settings. We then run thousands of iterations to map the distribution of outcomes.

This effort is part of a new research program Articulating Complexity ( https://www.slu.se/articulating-complexity/) hosted at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and led by Guillaume Chapron (Docent). It is funded by grants from the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra), and the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS).

Our goal is to build a novel methodology at the intersection of AI, ecology, political science, and complex system analysis that may change how policies are designed and stress-tested and how governments prepare for crises. We are looking for an ambitious postdoctor to join this effort.

Forests in Sweden are increasingly exposed to interacting forest damage agents and climate-related stressors, including bark beetle outbreaks, drought, heat events and spring frost. This project will develop and validate a spatiotemporal, phenology-aware risk framework for identifying where and when Norway spruce forests are most vulnerable to bark beetle outbreaks under changing climatic conditions. As a research engineer, you will support the project through remote sensing data processing, geospatial analysis, reproducible workflow development and preparation of map products. The work will include satellite time-series analysis for phenology mapping, integration of climate and environmental layers, validation with field, phenocam and UAV/hyperspectral observations, and preparation of data products that can support scientific publications and stakeholder-oriented risk mapping. The position is suitable for a technically skilled person who wants to work at the interface between forest remote sensing, forest damage risk assessment and applied environmental data science.

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with a particular interest in forest landscape modelling. As part of a two-year postdoctoral project, you will use the Heureka decision support system to analyse how different forest management strategies affect biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services, as well as how these interact with the development of wind power. The work involves quantifying conflicts and synergies between different sustainability goals in the forest landscape using simulation and optimisation. The analysis will be based on spatially explicit future scenarios, developed in collaboration with various stakeholder groups, and will include indicators such as biomass production, carbon sequestration, recreational values and wind energy.

The postdoctoral position is part of the interdisciplinary research project WindyForests, which brings together researchers from several universities and disciplines with the aim of developing knowledge for the sustainable planning of wind power in forest landscapes.

We are offering a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Forest Ecology and Management, focused on biological nitrogen fixation in boreal forests.

The postdoctoral fellow will investigate biological nitrogen fixation activity in ecological niches including soil, deadwood, and mosses through field and/or greenhouse experiments using techniques such as stable isotope labeling and/or DNA-based approaches. Interactions among nitrogen-fixing organisms (diazotrophs), fungi, and plants may also be explored. The postdoc will join the Forest Vegetation Ecology group and be supervised by Dr. Stefan Hupperts and Prof. Michael Gundale.