22 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands

Hydrogen can naturally diffuse in steel, where the hydrogen can interact with steel microstructures and advancing cracks. This raises questions as to whether existing natural gas pipelines can be repurposed for use with gaseous hydrogen. In this project, you will use and develop advanced Abaqus FEA subroutines to monitor hydrogen diffusion in complex steel microstructures in the vicinity of a crack tip stress field. You will use this hydrogen concentration to degrade the mechanical properties of the pipeline steel and to assess how the hydrogen will affect fatigue crack growth rates. You will work with an experimentalist to validate your hypotheses with their empirical results.

This role involves the design and development of novel experimental setups for testing hydrogen blends with ammonia or kerosene. Using these setups, the researcher will conduct advanced laser diagnostics to investigate combustion stability and pollutant formation. A strong emphasis will be placed on uncertainty quantification of experimental results. This research aims to provide insights essential for designing cleaner, more efficient power and propulsion systems.

The position is part of a European collaborative project, providing opportunities to work closely with leading academic and industrial partners. The researcher will actively engage with project partners, exchange knowledge, and provide experimental data to support and validate combustion models developed by collaborators

TwinEU project, funded under Horizon Europe, is recruiting a talented, enthusiastic, and ambitious Postdoc candidate to perform excellent research and achieve breakthroughs in the field of digital twins for power systems. The strategic goal of TwinEU is to leverage a unique set of competences from grid and market operators, technology providers and research centres to create a concept of Pan-European digital twin based on the federation of local digital twins and enable a reliable, resilient, and safe operation of the infrastructure while facilitating new business models that will accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources in Europe.  The envisioned digital twin will build the capability to observe, test and activate a pan-European digital replica of the European energy infrastructure. Demonstrators will encompass key players at every level from transmission to distribution and market operators, while also testing the coordinated cross-area data exchange.

We invite applications for a fully funded Postdoctoral Researcher to contribute to our pioneering research on Circular Design within the healthcare sector. The Postdoc will be based in the Design for Sustainability section at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Your research findings are expected to be published in academic journals and shared through popular articles, reports, and design manuals. You will also be involved in organizing and participating in meetings, co-creation sessions, workshops, and attending international conferences and national seminars. Additionally, candidates are expected to contribute to our educational activities, including the well-regarded BSc and MSc courses in Design for Sustainability and Circular Product Design.

COCOON project, funded under Horizon Europe, is recruiting 3 talented, enthusiastic, and ambitious postdoctoral researchers to perform excellent research and achieve breakthroughs in the field of power system resilience and cyber security. The main objective of COCOON is to deliver practical cyber-physical power system solutions by bridging secure networked systems research and innovation with power system engineering. To this end, a set of technological innovations will be developed for the detection and prevention of cyber attacks in digital substations. The COCOON solutions will be demonstrated at TSO, DSO, DRES, and digital substation in 4 real demonstration environments.

The project objectives are to:

• Postdoc 1: Develop a real-time digital twin of the power grid in RTDS to analyse how cyber attacks simulated using HIL on a digital substation with IEDs can cause cascading failures;
• Postdoc 2: Develop and test anomaly detection using AI techniques for digital substations;
• Postdoc 3: Develop and test cyber secure, real-time protection schemes for digital substations by performing network integrity checks for digital substation traffic (IEC61850 GOOSE and Sampled Values) using message authentication mechanisms such as HMAC.

Temperature sensing is pivotal to numerous advanced applications, from industrial processes to fundamental research. Yet, frequent recalibration remains a significant bottleneck. We seek a motivated postdoc to push the boundaries of temperature measurement by developing integrated optical chips featuring mechanical resonators and innovative readout protocols. Your work will focus on designing self-calibration techniques to enhance accuracy while minimizing calibration demands. You will collaborate closely with leading experts within the PhoQust project (https://phoqus-t.com), contributing to groundbreaking developments in optomechanical thermometry.

The safety of geological disposal facilities for radioactive waste strongly rely on the performance of clays, which are used as natural or engineered barriers to limit fluid flow and pollutant transport. An important aspect of the barrier behaviour is its strong time dependence, which is often poorly captured by current models.

The aim of the project is to push the boundaries of existing undestanding of the time-dependent response of clay barriers through the development of theoretical models and the analysis of (newly acquired) experimental data. It is anticipated that the researcher will need to enrich the description of existing models to account for the strong clay-water interactions and, in collaboration with a PhD student, acquire experimental data to support these developments.

While optical microscopy is an important diagnostic tool in science and technology, not all materials are transparent for light. Ultrafast-laser-induced ultrasound provides a way of ‘looking’ inside such opaque media. In this approach, absorption of a femtosecond-duration laser pulse at the surface of an object leads to the generation of acoustic phonons, high-frequency sound pulses that can propagate into the object. By optically detecting the reflected waves that return to the surface, the 3D structure of non-transparent objects can be reconstructed with sub-micrometer resolution.

As a postdoc, you will develop this photoacoustic imaging technology further, and explore its application potential in fields such as biological imaging and semiconductor metrology. Working together with PhD and undergraduate students, you will be leading further technology development of the modulated asynchronous optical sampling system used to perform the measurements. The project objective is to demonstrate novel applications of photoacoustic imaging and metrology, and to advance our capabilities to visualize 3D nanostructures in various fields of science.

Anaerobic fermentative microbiomes growing on organic carbon simultaneously employ multiple biochemical pathways to maximize free-energy conservation. Despite their significant relevance to health, environmental science, and biotechnology, predicting their stoichiometry, kinetics, and ecological behavior under varied and dynamic conditions remains a challenge. Key ecological questions that would enhance our understanding of microbiome assembly and dynamics are still unanswered. For instance: Can we consistently direct population dynamics, restore lost functionalities, or select specific interspecies interactions? To what extent does inoculum composition influence community structure and function?
In the laboratory, we will cultivate fermentative communities in parallel bioreactors, subjecting them to controlled variable selective pressures (https://m-unlock.com/parallel-cultivation-platform). These bioreactors are equipped for high-throughput biochemical and molecular analyses, which will reduce uncertainty in experimental data and support the generation of theoretical hypotheses.

In the past century, long-distance passenger travel has become increasingly common. While bringing many advantages by means of enhanced mobility and connectivity, it also comes at a cost due to the externalities generated, such as the depletion of finite natural resources, noise pollution and its contribution to climate change. There is however a striking discrepancy between the relevance of long-distance travel for emission reduction goals and the lack of knowledge to support its design, planning and policy making.

In this ERC Consolidator Grant project, called Multi-layer, Multi-modal and Multi-class Air and Rail Systems (3MARS), the research team will develop and test models to capture the market relations and dynamics between supply and demand and amongst (air, rail and bus) service providers in response to policy interventions.

We are excited to offer a postdoctoral position as part of the innovative Q-fibre project, which aims to develop a cutting-edge toolbox for monitoring and ensuring the integrity of CO2 storage sites. This project leverages fibre-optic data from wells to provide operators with enhanced insights into the thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of storage systems, allowing for improved management of CO2 storage integrity.

In this postdoc role, you will focus on Distributed Strain and Acoustic Sensing (DSS/DAS), with an emphasis on laboratory-based strain and acoustic measurements. The primary goal is to connect the mechanical behavior of rocks and cement with the response measured by DSS/DAS systems, with applications for shallow geothermal storage on the TU Delft campus. Your research will contribute directly to the development of a comprehensive monitoring toolbox for the Q-fibre project.

You will work with a world-leading team of researchers, to develop energy systems planning and operational assessment approaches to tackle the fundamental challenges facing countries in Africa. Postdoc/Research assistant position for 20 months (financed  by the Horizon Europe call topic AU-EU water energy food exus) is available within the recently awarded research project EPIC Africa (www.epicafrica.eu). The project task for this postdoc aims to generate and apply spatially explicit and temporally detailed energy and water models for verification and operational optimisation of WEF (infrastructure) systems. With national and transboundary energy planning cases in Africa (Volta and Tana basins), we will assess multiple reference years for given infrastructure investment plans from the long-term planning investment planning models (Osemosys). In particular, the objectives of this position are to: (i) Test the resilience of planned WEF development pathways under different climate and market uncertainties and so inform constraints for multi-sectoral infrastructure investment planning (ii) Test different operational and intervention strategies, in consultation with stakeholders in the energy and water sectors, to alleviate water and energy deficits and so minimise lost economic and social benefits; (iii) Derive appropriate operational rules and water allocations to synergize WEF resource use and increase resilience to climate and market uncertainties; (iv) Assess trade-offs in water and land use between energy and agricultural sectors under different levels of self-sufficiency targets and operational settings; and (v) Develop and test levels of transboundary cooperation in operational management of water infrastructure in WEF context that can utilise seasonal forecasts and near real time observations.

The city of Amsterdam is actively developing new policies and pilot projects to transform how it manages urban waste. In collaboration with AMS (Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions), the city seeks innovative solutions to tackle the growing issue of waste and litter, particularly in its city center. To support this effort, the AMS Institute and the Municipality of Amsterdam have launched the “Clean Inner City” project to create, test, and evaluate advanced solutions for sustainable urban waste management. 

This postdoctoral position, funded under the “Clean Inner City” initiative, focuses on developing a smart sensing and monitoring system to better understand urban waste dynamics in Amsterdam. This includes but is not limited to, identifying entry processes of plastic (and other types of) waste into the environment from images, describing transport and retention processes in urban water systems, and exploring key explaining variables. The postdoc researcher will work on (1) collecting images at relevant study sites in Amsterdam, (2) designing and training AI-based models using deep learning, and (3) identifying and classifying the waste into different categories and exploring its transport dynamics in urban environments.

Among the many challenges faced by the growing bioeconomy, scaling biological systems to commercial volumes remains challenging. Well-calibrated dynamic bioprocess models can support this effort, but for these models to be representative of large-scale performance, measurements of the cellular response to various extracellular conditions are required. The team of Prof. Romana Schirhagl at the University medical center Groningen (UMCG) developed a novel sensing technique for real-time intracellular quantification of free radicals. Free radicals are involved in the cellular stress response as well as in aging, and therefore may correlate with bioprocess-relevant physiological traits, such as (by-) product formation. While this sensing technique was developed for medical applications, they are interested in its application in bioprocesses and how it may support successful scale-up. The bioprocess engineering section at TU Delft is collaborating with the group of Prof. Schirhagl to establish and evaluate this technology in a bioprocess context.

In this 2 year postdoctoral project, you will provide a proof-of-concept where cell stress measurements are integrated into (empirical or mechanistic) dynamic bioprocess models used to monitor the metabolic activity and productivity of a bioreactor. This project consists mainly of dry-lab activities and close collaboration with wet-lab activities by other positions in the consortium. Our objective is to learn if our approach is able to determine the health of a bioreactor culture as well as determine if free radicals can act as an early indicator of a bioreactor culture crash and/or as an indicator of scale-up success. You will be part of the bioprocess engineering section at TU Delft, department of biotechnology, and will mainly work with Dr. ir. Cees Haringa (bioprocess modelling) and Dr. ir. Marieke Klijn (process analytical technology). Furthermore, you will have a strong interaction with the team at UMCG, who will conduct the underlying experimental work.

 

(18) Postdoctoral Fellowship Position

Postdoc Fellowship Position summary/title: Postdoc Strain Monitoring using Dynamic Fibre-optic Field Data

Deadline : 15 January 2025

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Imagine designing for climate injustice, our healthcare crisis, or to convince people to eat less meat. Or finding new methods to understand the drivers behind democratic participation. Perhaps you dream of helping to relieve poverty in socially disadvantaged communities. Or assisting the local government in combatting street harassment. These are just a few of the many areas you could use Systemic Design to make the changes you want to see in society.

We invite you to advance our expertise in Systemic Design together at the prestigious Delft University of Technology. Join our world-class Systemic Design Lab in Delft and tackle the challenges of tomorrow. Here, you will be working at the forefront of the field as part of a young, international, cross-departmental team that learns together and believes in the power of integrating design and systems thinking to achieve systemic change. You will get to work on the causes closest to your heart while contributing to the advancement of Systemic Design as a field of design research.

New products are not designed in a vacuum. They are often developed by organizations with an existing brand and product portfolio. These brands function as a platform for developing and launching new products effectively. Brands may signal quality and other cues, and they help consumers in their decision making processes. In our current society, brand meaning is co-created by these organizations (offline and online) with multiple stakeholders such as influencers, reviewers, retailers, consumers and the media. A strong and distinctive brand positioning should be based on a sharp brand DNA with consistent decisions on the brand’s purpose and personality.

We invite you to join our section on Responsible Marketing and Consumer Behavior (RMCB). In our group, we investigate and teach (sustainable) consumer behavior, strategic brand management, designing brand experiences, sustainable packaging and responsible marketing. You will be working at the forefront of the new product marketing field as part of a young and international team that learns together and believes in the power of integrating design, consumer behavior, marketing, strategic brand management and sustainability.

Current rehabilitation technology interventions require the constant intervention from the therapist to personalize the therapy plan to patients’ individual sensorimotor and cognitive deficits. This puts a tremendous burden on therapists’ cognitive workload as they must deal with a large amount of high-dimensional data to infer decisions. Although recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches for therapy personalization have yielded promising results, there are raising concerns about their interpretability and trustworthiness. Furthermore, previous research only employed single metrics, which are inherently a poor descriptor of the overall patient characterization.

This project aims to mitigate these limitations by developing a novel therapist-in-the-loop personalization approach based on Hybrid AI. We are seeking for a postdoc to combine the power of neural networks to learn meaningful associations from high-dimensional data with the possibility to explicitly model therapists’ reasoning by symbolic AI to provide reliable, explainable, trustworthy, and easy-to-interpret therapy recommendations.

We are seeking a talented and motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join our multidisciplinary team in advancing Aerial Robotics, with a focus on developing solutions for aerial physical interaction with unknown objects and challenging environments. The successful candidate will work on designing and testing robust robotic systems and algorithms to enable safe, adaptive, and efficient aerial interaction in complex settings. The scientific challenges include dynamic aerial interaction, interaction with unknown objects, and novel drone skills that leverage bio-inspired embodied intelligence for interaction.

This research will have real-world applications in areas such as environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and Space exploration, where autonomous aerial systems need to interact with delicate structures or dynamic environments. Expected technical skills include mechatronic design, signal processing and control theory.