05 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Vrije University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Despite robots increasingly entering our work lives, we know surprisingly little about their impact on jobs. Engineers are excited to build intelligent robotic applications with the aim to alleviate difficult, risky, or boring jobs, such as cleaning, bomb diffusion, transportation of goods or surveillance. Labor economists and public commentators, in turn, put forward gloomy scenarios of jobs becoming obsolete, degraded or void of meaning. Currently, however, we lack a rigorous insight into how robots are really used in situated work practice. Without such insight, engineers are in the dark about what impact robots have on work and have few methods of including work context into account when building robotic applications. This NWO-funded Vidi project aims to generate such insight by conducting several ethnographic studies of professional service robots at work.

In this context, we are looking for a candidate to fill one Postdoc position for a duration of two years. Starting date is flexible throughout 2024 and will be agreed on with the suitable candidate.

The postdoc will conduct ethnographic research under the supervision of dr. Anastasia V. Sergeeva and will be based at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation at the Vrije Universiteit. KIN research focuses on the development, use and business value of innovative organizational processes and technologies. This research center is a home to a multi-disciplinary group of researchers, with academic backgrounds in business administration, sociology, communication science, anthropology, philosophy, engineering, and computer science. The research contributes to an international field that is relatively new and multi-disciplinary. We work closely together with faculty and researchers from other universities and cooperate with an extensive network of business partners.                

Drug formulations are increasingly composed of so-called “nanodrugs”, precisely controlled containers that target-specifically deliver complex molecules such as DNAs or RNAs. Surprisingly, much-needed nano characterization platforms that rapidly, quantitatively and accurately asses the quality of such formulations are still lacking. Routine observations are often based on costly options such as TEM or analytical ultracentrifugation.

During this 30 months postdoctoral fellowship, you will develop an all-optical and label-free single particle sizing platform that rapidly measures thousands of individual nanoparticles in parallel. The clear and ambitious goal is to provide a technology that covers the full range of nanodrugs: from tiny viral vectors, over bacteriophages to larger liposomes. You will provide what is needed: size, mass, loading ratios e.g. a full characterization of these crucial system based on all-optical single particle observations.

Beyond accurately determining particle sizes and drug-loading ratios you will develop next-generation methods that directly quantify the biomolecular composition. The envisioned strategy is novel which ensures that you will have the chance to establish a highly innovative sensing-portfolio that should allow applying for competitive funding beyond this appointment.

Serial Crystallography (SX) is an emerging method that allows visualizing the macromolecule interaction with light. SX is a so-called “pump–probe” experiment, where a short UV-Visible light laser pulse excites the chromophores in the molecule while an X-ray pulse is used to probe the newly formed state at a  certain delay after light excitation. As a result, the light-induced X-ray crystallographic electron densities are assigned to reactions and excited-state processes. Postdoctoral research position in SX and dynamic structural biology is available to study light inducible proteins essential for photosynthesis and photobiology. The SX results would be complemented by time-resolved spectroscopy.The position is available now for a minimum of one year, with the possibility of extension.
The research will be carried out at the VU under the supervision of Dr Volha Chukhutsina.

The Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam seeks a highly motivated and talented candidate holding a PhD degree in (eco)toxicology, microbiology, analytical chemistry or a related field, to join our Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment (A-LIFE). During this 22-month full-time postdoctoral position, you will contribute to two research projects related to the environmental dimension of the urgent global health threat that is AMR. Your main focus will be on the development of an in vitro bioassay for AMR selection potential of water samples, as part of the NOSTRA project (Novel Surveillance Toolkit for Resistance selection potential of Antimicrobially active waters). You will also use your experimental results to develop an in silico mechanistic model of the relationship between antibiotic exposures and AMR selection. A smaller part of this position contributes to the SWIM project (Safe drinking Water production from AMR polluted surface water using Innovative Membrane technology). As part of SWIM, you will perform an environmental and a human health AMR impact assessment, based on a pilot study on improved water treatment in Jakarta (Indonesia).

We are looking for someone holding a PhD with a strong experimental background in (eco)toxicology and/or microbiology, with experience in in vitro toxicity testing, preferably with bacterial culturing techniques. Moreover, the candidate has demonstrable experience with translating experimental findings into computational in silico models and assessments, using R, Python, or more advanced programming languages. As the research crosses multiple research domains within and beyond A-LIFE, we are looking for someone who flourishes working in a team and enjoys building bridges between experts from different disciplines.

Collaborate in an interdisciplinary team (media psychology, developmental and clinical psychology, computational linguistics, computer sciences/AI) to further develop and empirically validate a theory on affective bonding with social robots through focus groups and field studies in special needs education (postdoc-1), care for disabled (young) adults (postdoc-2) and therapeutic assistance for adolescents (postdoc-3). Jointly, during the first six months, the team will align the various sub-projects and literature reviews will bring knowledge from the diverse fields together. The team will then also prepare active consent and properly informed participant information materials in accordance with ethical guidelines, as well as acknowledging Open Science principles. First studies in each sub-project explore best fitting robot options, communication cues, users’ needs, and goals to be aligned between robots and targeted users. To assess the theoretical constructs in the model, new short-form measurement devices need to be developed and optimized through pre-testing and validation in representative samples. Further testing occurs with various robots differing in appearances and competencies within specific social contexts, related to answer the overarching research question. Together with the supervisors and team members, you will plan and execute your own research project, collaborate in others, carry out your research according to international standards and open science principles, make your research and experiments publicly available and reproducible, and publish it in leading international journals, conference proceedings, and brief reports accessible to the public at large. The postdocs will take part in the supervision of the research work of the PhD-candidates that should result in timely completion of their dissertations. In addition to building a strong research track, supervision experience is important for your academic development as well as gaining experience in teaching. Therefore, the position also allows for the possibility to add a small teaching position next to the .8 fte research position. More detailed information is available upon request.