11 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Aalborg University, Denmark

The postdoc will work within the interdisciplinary Novo Nordisk Foundation synergy project NSECURE in collaboration with microbiology and chemistry researchers from Aarhus University. The ultimate aim of this project is to design root microbiomes that can help wheat plants being self-sufficient with nitrogen.
The role of the post doc is to develop and apply statistical methodology for compositional time series and causal inference for microbiome data. Understanding causal relations between root bacteria is a crucial requirement for designing microbiomes that sustain the presence of beneficial nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Limited teaching within statistics and mathematics can be expected.

Freeze injury is a main limiting factor in horticultural crop production in temperate regions. In particular, spring frost is a significant production hazard and despite global warming, the risk of spring frost damage to fruit crops is forecasted to increase. This postdoc position is part of a project focusing on developing solutions for improved spring frost protection of buds and flowers in fruit orchards. The project has three main objectives;(i) to evaluate new frost protection tools that are more efficient and sustainable than the existing methods,(ii) examine the use of microclimatic temperature sensors for better risk prediction, and(iii) provide better indicators of bud freeze resistance for more precise warning. The postdoc will mostly be working on obtaining improved indicators of bud freeze resistance. This involves collecting plant material in the field, recording phenological development, measure freeze tolerance of buds and flowers of selected fruit crops and investigate underlying physiological and metabolic changes such as changes in soluble carbohydrates, fatty acids and water status that may be bio-signatures of changes in bud freeze resistance. The project is carried out in collaboration with Aarhus University, HortiAdvice and commercial fruit growers and some of the experimental work will be carried out in an experimental fruit orchard at Aarhus University. For further information about the project please contact Associate Professor Majken Pagter by e-mail: [email protected]

The Department of Chemistry and Bioscience provides cutting-edge research and teaching in biotechnology, biology, environmental science, chemistry and chemical engineering. Our research solves important topics for the benefit of society, and through research-based teaching, we educate independent, collaborative and solution-oriented bachelors, graduates and PhDs.

At the department, we have high-profile research groups and individual researchers who deliver world-class applied and basic scientific research with a mission-driven approach, and who contribute to the development of new technologies, methods, and new basic insights within natural science and engineering.

We are a dynamic workplace with high professionalism and efficiency, a good working environment and with a focus on work-life balance. We strive for a culture with collaboration that promotes openness and curiosity towards new initiatives and ideas and with a constructive approach to problem solving. As an employee at the department, you will be part of an international research environment, with a focus on innovation, knowledge sharing and excellency as well as interdisciplinary collaborations.

The position involves co-developing a digital toolkit for listening to urban publics and visualizing their concerns around the future of tourism in Copenhagen. The toolkit will be developed on the basis of the award-winning Urban Belonging app and the postdoc is expected to source design specifications for relevant stakeholders. The project is funded bythe European Urban Initiative and will be conducted in partnership with the municipality of Copenhagen, the National Museum and private-public companies such as Wonderful Copenhagen, StoryHunt ApS, and We Do Democracy. The postdoc will be anchored in the TANTLab research group and have strong ties to the RECAST research group.

The postdoc position is part of the CULTIGEN project, which takes its outset in current controversies around overtourism across Europe. CULTIGEN will pioneer a data-driven and community-focused tourism governance fed by local communities and tourists, to better understand their grievances and better inform decision-making. As backbone of the solution, the project will develop a participatory‘Urban listening toolkit’ to engage, collect and analyze users’ data on their urban experience. The tool will merge quantitative and qualitative dimensions to offer new modes of empirical understanding of urban tourism and its impacts.

The postdoc is expected to contribute to this development with an outset in digital methods, digital humanities, and participatory design. While the postdoc will not be expected to write the code underlying the tool, the candidate should have the competence to mediate between stakeholder inputs to the functionalities of the tool and the programmer building it. This involves facilitating design sprints to scoping the analytical functionalities and design specifications in conversation with the future users. The research questions, methodology, and project plan for the postdoc will be developed in conversation with Professor Anders Koed Madsen and Associate professor Martin Trandberg Jensen. The full project team will also comprise a PhD student, a research assistant and a programmer assisting with the tool development.

Biomarker candiates of pig robustness and pig gut antimicrobial resistome will be discovered in other studies in the PIG-PARADIGM project. The aim of this Postdoc project is to refine the candiate set by identifying and validating biomarkers for pig robustness and pig gut antimicrobial resistome using statistics and data science.

Aalborg University contributes to the knowledge building of the global society as well as the development ofprosperity, welfare and culture of Danish society. This is accomplished through research, research-based
education, public sector services and knowledge collaboration. Aalborg University educates students for the future and activities are based on a dynamic and transformative collaboration with the surrounding
community.

AAU Energy is a dynamic engineering research department in continuous growth and inspiring surroundings. AAU Energy has a very international environment and covers all areas of clean and sustainable energy
systems of the future within electrical, thermal and mechatronic energy technology. AAU Energy has campuses in both Aalborg and Esbjerg, this position is located in Aalborg.

The mission is to be world leading in both research and research-based education of the energy engineers of the future. AAU Energy has approx. 300 employees of many nationalities, of which 25 are administrative staff. In addition, AAU Energy constantly has approx. 50-70 guest researchers from around the world.

Research and teaching are in the absolute world elite in the field of energy, and we have extensive and leading workshop and laboratory facilities, where research and innovation are carried out in direct collaboration with industry to a great extent.

The position is offered in relation to the project“CirclePE: Circular Power Electronics for Green Transition” within the research program”Reliability of Power Electronic Converters” and the Postdoc will be positioned
in the section for Applied Power Electronic Systems. The project is in close collaboration with Danfoss Drive A/S, where the postdoc will have an opportunity for a short research stay during the project.

The Department of Chemistry and Bioscience provides cutting-edge research and teaching in biotechnology, biology, environmental science, chemistry and chemical engineering. Our research solves important topics for the benefit of society, and through research-based teaching, we educate independent, collaborative and solution-oriented bachelors, graduates and PhDs.

At the department, we have high-profile research groups and individual researchers who deliver world-class applied and basic scientific research with a mission-driven approach, and who contribute to the development of new technologies, methods, and new basic insights within natural science and engineering. The department is divided into two sections: Section for Bioscience and Engineering and Section for Chemical Science and Engineering, as well as one administration. Both sections have activities on both Aalborg and Esbjerg campuses. The day-to-day management is handled by the head of department, the deputy heads of research and education, and the head of the secretariat in collaboration with section leaders.

A position to implement a Time Series Management System(TSMS) to be used in 6G network infrastructure is available at the Data Engineering, Science and Systems(DESS) group at the Department of Computer Science at Aalborg University(AAU), Denmark. The position is available for a flexible starting date as soon as possible after 1st November 2024. The position is initially for 2 years, with the possibility of extension up to 4 years in total after mutual consent.

About the Data Engineering, Science and Systems(DESS) group: DESS research focuses on data-intensive systems, spatio-temporal data management, data analytics, and applications of machine learning, with applications in digital energy and intelligent transport. International evaluations place DESS in the global top tier. For example, csrankings.org lists DESS as no. 1 in Europe and no. 9 in the world within Databases for the period 2023-2024. More information about DESS can be found at:https://www.cs.aau.dk/research/Data-Engineering-Science-and-Systems

About Aalborg University: According to the most recent US News and World Ranking, Aalborg University ranks 2nd in Europe and 16th in the world within Best Universities for Engineering. According to a 2018 MIT report, Aalborg University is considered to have the 4th best engineering program in the world. According to the recent Times Higher Education Impact ranking, Aalborg University ranks 9th in the World for UN SDG Impact.

Calmodulinopathies were first described, when we in 2012 first coupled human genetic variants in calmodulin to cardiac arrhythmia. Since then, a major research focus for us has been to understand the molecular consequences of these variants on protein structure and function, on calmodulin’s interaction with other proteins, and how this translates to disease phenotype. To this end, we have implemented several advanced biophysical assays to measure effects on protein interactions. Today, we are a meta-group of complementing research fields, where we study calmodulin variants across genetics, protein structure, protein biophysics, cell biology and inC. elegans model animals.

In this postdoc position, you will study effects of calmodulin variants in model systems based on cultured cells. There are two major components of the project: First you will study calmodulin’s regulation of other proteins in immortalized cell lines, such as HEK and SH-SY5Y. This includes studying the regulation of the calcium channel ryanodine receptor type 2. There will be a focus on microscopy-based methods, and you will participate in designing and/or implementing new assays. The second part of the project focuses on the effects of calmodulin variants on cardiomyocytes differentiated from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. This research is currently based in Milan, and you will participate in the project there and implement some of the technology at our research facilities in Aalborg.

The project is headed by Professor Michael Toft Overgaard and Assistant Professor Helene Halkjær Jensen. You may obtain further information about the project by e-mail:[email protected] or[email protected]. The primary workplace is at the Medical Biotechnology section, Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Aalborg East, Denmark. The position also involves one or more research stays at Istituto Auxologico, Milan, Italy.

Limited teaching within the area can be expected, but also in other study programmes at the University.

The department provides cutting-edge research and teaching in biotechnology, biology, environmental science, chemistry, and chemical engineering. Our research solves important topics for the benefit of society, and through research-based teaching, we educate independent, collaborative, and solution-oriented bachelors, graduates, and PhDs.

At the department, we have high-profile research sections and individual researchers who deliver world-class applied and basic scientific research with a mission-driven approach, and who contribute to the development of new technologies, methods, and new basic insights within natural science and engineering.

We are a dynamic workplace with high professionalism and efficiency, a good working environment, and with a focus on work-life balance. We strive for a culture with collaboration that promotes openness and curiosity towards new initiatives and ideas and with a constructive approach to problem solving. As an employee at the department, you will be part of an international research environment, with a focus on innovation, knowledge sharing and excellency as well as interdisciplinary collaborations.

The postdoc positions are part of the EU Horizon Europe projects“CIRCWIND- Development of CIRCular optimised material solutions for WIND turbine blades and support structures”and“MADE4WIND– Innovative circular materials and design methods for the development of Floating Wind Turbine components for offshore Wind Farms of the future”.Both projects aim to develop and validate innovative technologies for current and future wind turbines(WT), to enhance reliability and lifetime, performance, recyclability, operability and maintainability, as well as to find cost-efficient pathways towards complete circularity in a context where a growing number of WT are reaching their end-of-life.

Partners behind the EU projects consist of international and world-leading experts gathered from research institutions, material suppliers, and wind turbine manufacturers.

The topic for the MADE4WIND project is related to composite blade recycling technologies by exploiting a new generation of thermoset resins for the manufacture and recycling of composites. This new resin may be dissolved using a mild solvolysis process enabling to extract the fibre reinforcement materials. In this project, the postdoc will focus on improving the recyclability and circularity of the extracted fibre reinforcement materials with the aim to re-use the recycled fibre materials in the manufacture of new composites. The ideal candidate for this position has documented skills within the following domain-specific areas: composite material science, experimental characterization of fibrous materials, polymer and composite recycling processes, fibre fabric handling and processing, and development of new experiments and associated data reduction schemes. We do expect that some of these skills will have to be learned during the project and thus it is not required to have all the skills listed. At the time of starting in the postdoc position, the candidate must have obtained a PhD degree.

The overall topics for the open postdoc position within the CIRCWIND project deal with development of new wind turbine blade technologies enabling lighter, stronger, and more reliable wind turbine blades in the future.

Specifically, new concepts for the design of a next generation non-crimp glass fibre fabric will be explored and matured. CIRCWIND will develop a new multiscale and physics-based finite element simulation model of the underlying damage mechanisms at the microscale affecting the mesoscale crack growth rate during spectrum loading. To achieve this, it will use experimental data from characterization tests that will be performed on blade FRP laminated composites. Such experimental characterization will consider the operational conditions(wind loads, temperatures, humidity, etc.) of the harsh offshore environments that CIRCWIND is targeting. Focus of the research is to study the role and importance of FRP material design parameters and their crack shielding effect providing improved fatigue life and as a result a new FRP material with improved properties will be developed. An additional aim of CIRCWIND is to develop a new effective macroscale simulation tool that accurately can predict the fatigue crack growth, thus enabling future digital twins of wind turbine blades. This new simulation tool will be used to generate a virtual replica of a blade composite and coupled with a physical experiment. Damage data will be monitored using optical crack tracking techniques and embedded into the virtual replica for improved prediction performance. Thus, these developments will be fundamental for reliably improving the design of future wind turbine blades as well enable future digital twins for improved O&M and assessment of potential lifetime extensions. The open postdoc position will focus on the experimental and material science aspects of the CIRCWIND project while an already recruited PhD student will focus on the numerical developments. The ideal candidate for the postdoc position related to the CIRCWIND project has documented skills within the following domain-specific areas: composite materials and structures, damage and fracture mechanics of composites, experimental characterization of fibrous materials, development of test methods, fixtures, and data reduction schemes based on advanced instrumentation. We do expect that some of these skills will have to be learned during the project and thus it is not required to have all the skills listed. At the time of starting in the postdoc position, the candidate must have obtained a PhD degree.

Please target your application either towards the postdoc position within the MADE4WIND or the CIRCWIND project.

The postdoc positions will join the CraCS research group at Aalborg University headed by Associate Professor Esben Lindgaard and Associate Professor Brian Lau Verndal Bak, and currently consisting of 10 researchers(professors, postdoc researchers, Ph.D. students). Several researchers besides the open postdoc positions will work on the projects and the main supervisor for both postdoc positions will be Associate Professor Esben Lindgaard. As a Postdoc in the CraCS Research Group you may work on several different research projects depending on needs, competences, and interests.