29 Research Associate positions at University of Manchester, England

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Applications are invited for an outstanding Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded project on “Debris-flow dynamics: Understanding phase separation and wave formation”. The post is part of an international team of researchers studying the spontaneous formation of waves in debris flows. Waves vastly concentrate the energy within a debris flow, and strongly enhance their destructive potential, yet very little is known about how they form and coarsen. The project is led by Professor Nico Gray and Dr Chris Johnson at The University of Manchester and involves collaboration with scientists in Switzerland who collect field data from the Ill graben debris-flow observation station. This interdisciplinary project will use a combination of small-scale experiments, field data, mathematical theory and numerical computations to understand how debris-flow waves form. The successful applicant will have a strong background in mathematics, physics, engineering or quantitative Earth sciences, and preferably some experience in performing experiments and/or analysing field data. She/he must have a PhD in a relevant discipline e.g. physics/geophysics or applied mathematics/mechanics, and a proven ability to publish research findings.

We are seeking to appoint an enthusiastic and self-motivated individual to develop cutting-edge research exploring digital technology’s role in personalising learning and assessment. This is a unique and exciting cross-disciplinary opportunity that sits at the intersection between education, education technology, computer science/software engineering and digital technology for global development. Based in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE), you will work as part of an international team managed with researchers and collaborators in multiple countries. This will involve working closely with a group within the EdTech Hub – one of the world’s largest education technology research initiatives. The role will also feature close collaboration with data scientists, software engineers and others.

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics seeks a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the area of instrumentation to work on an STFC Consolidated Grant project that aims to study and overcome the noise generation mechanisms in high electron mobility transistors (HEMTS). HEMTs form a crucial part of the low noise RF and microwave receivers used in radio astronomy, as well as those used in quantum technologies and particle physics. This project involves studying the noise generation mechanisms in HEMTs, exploring new surface treatments to facilitate the removal of heat from the HEMT’s conduction channel, and developing low noise amplifiers (LNAs) that can be cooled using liquid helium.

The post-holder will work on data reduction, data processing methodology, data inference methods, and mock data simulations in the context of HI Intensity Mapping. They will have access to SKA pathfinder data from South African array MeerKAT, working with an international team of experts. Several hundred of hours of observations have already been made and preliminary results have spurred an recent application for a further 2,500 hours of MeerKAT time for a wide area survey. This post is envisaged to work on both the “on-the-fly” interferometric visibilities as well as the autocorrelation measurements, with the aim of transferring calibrations and flag tables between these data sets in order to produce a joint optimised data reduction pipeline for both. There will be opportunities for the post-holder to be heavily involved in the scientific exploitation of the MeerKAT data, working on the cosmological implications of the HI measurements and on the high angular resolution wide-field survey map. The MeerKAT observations are one of the world’s current leading experiments to make HI Intensity Mapping measurements and they are a direct pathfinder for one of the SKA’s high priority science objectives. The wide-field survey maps will provide a unique resource to the community by giving a high angular resolution, high sensitivity map of the extragalactic southern sky between 580 and 1015 MHz.

Applications are invited for the role of Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Bioinformatics to work in translational neurooncology in the Hamerlik lab in Manchester. The post involves dealing with multi-omic data analysis and storage, focusing particularly on data from spatial multi-omic profiling of brain metastases (incl. GeoMx platform, Mass Spectrometry Imaging. Tasks range from low-level QC and mapping through to statistical analysis, data visualization, machine learning and biological interpretation. The post-holder will also help develop tools and workflows, contribute to experimental design prior to data collection and will contribute to writing up work for journal papers and presentations. There will also be opportunities to contribute to training and education activities e.g. through a research secondment at AstraZeneca, attendance at courses, workshops and conferences.

The successful applicant with join the Division of Cell Matrix Biology and Regenerative Medicine, in the School of Biological Sciences. The work will take place in the Michael Smith Building laboratories of Professors Adrian S. Woolf and Susan J. Kimber. Over the last six years, they have run a programme of work using stem cell models to understand normal and abnormal human kidney development.

Environmental exposure threats like UV light, ionizing radiation (IR), chemicals in food, drugs and tobacco smoke cause disease principally through damage to DNA. Consequently, biological systems have evolved to minimise or reverse this damage. The most toxic damage is double-strand breakage of DNA, and the repair of such damage is also prone to error, which can lead to hereditary defects such as microcephaly, primordial dwarfism and immune deficiencies, as well as causing cancers. Many components of the cellular machinery that brings the broken ends together include intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs). The roles of these regions remain poorly understood, as they are not detected by many experimental techniques, but they are likely to dynamically form short-lived ordered modules that mediate interactions between the repair machinery components. The candidate will focus on a selected set of these IDRs to identify which regions become most ordered, what structures they make and which other proteins they interact with, which – in the longer term – could open up new ways of targeting these regions and developing novel precision oncology drugs. This 3-year position starting from 1st March 2023 is funded by the MRC, and is targeted at highly motivated individuals who are looking for an exciting project to make new discoveries in the above research areas. The studies will integrate structural biology techniques, in particular NMR, cell biology, biochemistry, microscopy, mass spectrometry, biophysical and computational methods. In-depth experience in recombinant protein expression and purification, as well as different biochemistry techniques is essential. Specialist knowledge in the DNA damage response, especially DNA double-strand break repair by non-homologous end-joining, is desirable. Duties will include but are not limited to conducting individual and collaborative research projects in the areas specified above.

Applications are invited for the post of Research Associate in nuclear physics to participate in the study of single-particle structure of exotic nuclei using transfer reactions as a probe. The project is also concerned with the implementation of a new technique for probing the fission process via measurements of transfer- induced fission using a solenoidal spectrometer and an array of heavy-ion detectors for fission fragments. The successful applicant will assist with research concerning transfer-reaction studies, using stable and radioactive beams. These studies will predominantly use solenoidal spectrometers such as ISS, HELIOS and SOLARIS, at ISOLDE-CERN (Geneva), Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (USA), respectively. Whilst the successful candidate will be based at The University of Manchester, the position will involve time spent using these facilities. There are some opportunities to initiate new research within the overall aims of the project.

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics seeks a Post-Doctoral Research Associate to be part of the MeerTRAP collaboration to search for Fast Radio Bursts and other transients using the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. MeerTRAP uses MeerKAT to perform commensal searches for fast radio transients from milliseconds to seconds and uses its multiple beams and transient buffers to allow accurate localisations and performs multi-wavelength follow up. It also works with the MeerLICHT telescope to perform simultaneous optical observations to enable the detection of any associated prompt and/or afterglow emission associated with fast radio transients. The successful candidate will work with Prof. Ben Stappers, Prof. Rene Breton and the wider MeerTRAP collaboration – both at Manchester and across the world – to find and localise new FRBs.  They would also utilise simultaneous optical observations and pursue multi-wavelength studies. MeerTRAP has revealed a population of longer period radio emitting neutron stars, and the PDRA will also work on studying this new class of neutron stars along with other Galactic transients discovered by MeerTRAP.

The successful candidate will work with Dr Rowan J. Smith to use her CLOUDFACTORY simulation suite to make critical comparisons to a diverse range of datasets, which include i) 3D dust maps, ii) HI surveys, iii) molecular line emission, and iv) polarization. Common observable metrics used in the literature will be tested to find their predictive power and we will investigate the best statistical tools to gain insights into the life cycle of star forming gas in galaxies like the Milky Way. The position is suitable for a researcher either with a background in numerical modelling, or of observing the cold ISM and star forming regions. Scope will exist within the project for the Research Fellow to propose their own ways of using the simulation datasets depending on their expertise. A key part of the project will be to make the resulting data products from the models public in an easily accessible format, and we particularly encourage researchers with an interest in public access data to apply.​​​​​​​

You will join a team of probabilistic modelling and machine learning researchers developing new principles and models for AI-assistants in cancer, which are able to help domain experts  even when the goals are only partially known, such as in the beginning of scientific research.  This will require expertise on multiple topics; you are expected to have experience in one or more of these and be interested in working with experts on the others. Keywords include advanced user modelling, automatic experimental design, Bayesian inference, human-in-the-loop learning, machine teaching, privacy-preserving learning, reinforcement learning and inverse reinforcement learning, and simulator-based inference. Initial applications will include decision making in personalized medicine, steering experimental design in cancer clinical trials, and design of digital twins for decision making in oncology. Prior experience in working in the biomedical domain is a plus.

The National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) as experimental medicine centres of excellence via competitive application every five years. Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) has recently been renewed over five years to provide experimental medicine infrastructure funding across Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria. 

We are excited to offer this exciting opportunity for a post-doctoral research associate to join the research laboratory of Dr Donald Ward in the Michael Smith Building, at The University of Manchester. ​​​​​​​The purpose of the research is to determine how phosphate inhibits the calcium-sensing receptor (CaR), and thus how hyperphosphataemia drives secondary hyperparathyroidism. The long-term aim of this work is to improve the treatment of CKD-MBD for the alleviation of the complications of kidney disease.

​​​​​​The ATLAS detector has started recording data from the CERN Large Hadron Collider Run-3 data-taking period. The improved ATLAS data selection (trigger) system in Run-3 enables the use of extensive real-time analysis techniques, where data collection and first-pass data analysis are near-simultaneous, allowing the recording of novel high-statistics datasets for the ATLAS experiment. The Particle Physics group at the University of Manchester is seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC. The successful candidate will ready the data recorded using these real-time analysis techniques and use it for new physics searches and measurements. The candidate will also play a leading role in the innovation of the ATLAS trigger system with the development and implementation of machine learning algorithms for fast decision making and data compression.  

(18) Postdoctoral Fellowship Position

Postdoc Fellowship Position summary/title: Research Associate in Pure Mathematics

Deadline : 23/01/2023

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The Electrochemistry research group at the University of Manchester have two vacancies for post-doctoral researchers working in the area of redox-flow batteries. The positions are funded through an exciting new project, supported by the German Federal agency for disruptive research, SPRIN-D. A recent challenge is in the area of long-term energy storage:

We have an exciting opportunity to appoint a talented and ambitious investigator to join the Research Group of Prof Andrew Morris to work on an innovative project funded by the Medical Research Council entitled: “Harnessing the power of diverse populations to empower clinical translation of genome-wide association studies of common human disease”. The project will develop and apply state-of-the-art statistical methods and software to integrate multi-ancestry genome-wide association studies of common diseases across diverse populations. The project will provide tools to enable a more comprehensive view of genetic risk and of the causal genes and biological mechanisms underlying common diseases that will be relevant to all, irrespective of their genetic ancestry, and will offer exciting future routes to clinical translation. The successful candidate will join an inter-disciplinary team of clinicians and basic scientists with diverse expertise in genetics, functional genomics, statistics, and epidemiology at the Centre for Genetics and Genomics Versus Arthritis at the University of Manchester (http://www.cfgg.manchester.ac.uk/ ). Suitable candidates will have a strong background in statistics, bioinformatics or computational biology, with a PhD (or equivalent) in a relevant subject, and will have experience in the analysis of genome-wide association studies and exemplary computational skills in a linux environment. This full-time post is available until 31 December 2025. ​​​​​​​

A postdoctoral research associate position is available to work on a project studying how signalling filopodia collect and transduce the BMP signal in Drosophila ovarian germline stem cells.  This project will build on our recent progress in this area (Wilcockson and Ashe, Dev Cell 2019) by developing a key research tool for the project.  The successful applicant will join Hilary Ashe’s lab to work on this BBSRC funded project, which represents a collaboration with Shukry Habib, Lausanne.  For further details of research within the Ashe lab, see: http://ashelab.com/.  You should hold or be working towards a PhD or equivalent in a biological science, be highly motivated and have an interest in developmental signalling.  The position is available for 1 year. ​​​​​​​

There is an urgent need for new anti-infective agents to combat antimicrobial resistance and to protect the global population in the event of future pandemics. However, existing antimicrobial drugs are becoming increasingly ineffective due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), with microbial pathogens rapidly evolving ways to evade the effects of these drug compounds. This project will focus on the discovery, characterisation and engineering of new biosynthetic pathways to antibiotics and other bioactive natural products produced by Streptomyces and related bacterial species. We are particularly interested in pathways to bioactive peptides and polyketide natural products. For examples of related previous work in our lab see:

This is an opportunity for a highly motivated immunologist to work on a full-time Wellcome Trust funded project, investigating mechanisms of immune surveillance at the mucosal barriers of the mouth. This exciting project will explore the immune-surveillance network policing the oral barrier, defining how this network develops and is educated by the local tissue environment to safeguard barrier homeostasis.  ​​​​​​​This post offers an excellent opportunity to join a dynamic research team within the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation. You will be a Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Joanne Konkel with access to excellent research facilities, cutting-edge technologies and cross-disciplinary training opportunities.

Applications are invited for the role of Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Translational Neurooncology to work in the Hamerlik lab in Manchester. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, the successful applicant will be responsible for driving the interrogation of molecular targets associated with glioblastoma recurrence. In particular, the post-doctoral research fellow will study mechanisms driving aberrant DNA repair and its functional interplay with DNA replication and transcription. The project will involve multi-omic profiling (scRNAsequencing, spatial proteomics and MSI) and utilize unique patient-derived spheroid and xenograft models developed in our laboratory for down-stream proof-of-mechanism experiments.

Applications are invited for a Research Associate in Pharmacokinetic Translation PBPK modelling, in the Division of Pharmacy and Optometry. The post will be tenable on a fixed term basis of 24 months in the first instance. Working under the umbrella of the Centre of Applied Pharmacokinetic Research (CAPKR) group, you will be fully involved in a CAPKR-funded project entitled ‘Liquid Biopsy and Endogenous Biomarkers to enhance or replace specific DDI studies in Patient Populations’. You will hold a PhD in a biomedical, pharmaceutical or systems modelling research area, and have a background in determining activities of drug metabolizing enzymes and/or transporters using different in vitro systems and experience in physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling incorporating in vitro-in vivo extrapolation. Emphasis will be placed on a developing publication record.

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics seeks a Post-Doctoral Research Associate to work on the cosmological analysis and scientific interpretation of weak gravitational lensing measurements obtained with ESA’s forthcoming Euclid satellite mission. The successful candidate will work with Prof. Michael Brown on the optimization of power spectrum estimators for the joint analysis of weak lensing and galaxy clustering (so-called 3×2 point analyses) and the interface with the subsequent cosmological inference pipeline. Cross-correlation analyses with overlapping Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) surveys, with the forthcoming Simons Observatory, will also be explored. For this position, we seek a candidate with significant theoretical/analytic skills and/or who has significant experience in working with large cosmological datasets (either real or simulated).

​​​​​​​The University of Manchester is seeking to appoint two Research Associates for the Sustainable Forest Transitions (SFT) project. SFT is a five-year, £1.7 million project funded as part of a UKRI Research Frontier grant based within the Global Development Institute in the School of Environment, Education and Development. The SFT project will conduct ground-breaking research to better understand how reforestation drivers affect forests and the communities that depend on them. Over the next five years, SFT will study the changing nature of forest cover and human development at unprecedented scale and detail. The SFT project will start working in Mexico, Brazil, India, and Nepal and very possibly expand to other countries. These two posts offer the opportunity for outstanding individuals to make a significant contribution to an exciting international sustainability research programme based at the University of Manchester. For a clearer sense of SFT’s research agenda, please see the publications pages of the project’s website (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/sftresearch/).

​​​​​​​Applications are invited for this exciting opportunity to join The University of Manchester’s team at RAICo One lab in Whitehaven UK. RAICo One is a state-of-the-art robotics lab located on the edge of the Lake District National Park, in West Cumbria. The University of Manchester Robotics for Extreme Environments Group is at the forefront of nuclear field robotics and has deployed many robots into nuclear facilities and other extreme environments in the UK and internationally. Your key role within the team will be to develop, maintain, and test the code base for our fleet of mobile robots.

(How) do hosts control microbiome dynamics? Eco-evolutionary theory suggests the mammalian microbiome is best conceived as an “ecosystem on a leash” – a diverse community of microbes locked in fierce competition, but stabilized by host adaptations. However, this hypothesis has yet to be directly tested, and we still understand little of how hosts shape their microbiomes.​​​​​​​ In this Wellcome Trust funded project you will work with immunologists and computational biologists to explore how one key host adaptation – Immunoglobulin A – influences both the behavior of individual microbes and the dynamics of the microbiome as a whole. You will use a variety of NGS techniques to profile microbiome dynamics within mice, use new computational pipelines to infer the ecological interactions driving these dynamics, and use fine-scale experimental approaches to test your predictions.