08 Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Helsinki, Finland

The ERC-funded project “Death, Smoke, and Mirrors: Manipulation of Health Data in Authoritarian and Custodial Institutions” (2025–2030) investigates how custodial institutions in both liberal and authoritarian regimes manipulated health and mortality data from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, and what these practices reveal about governance, accountability, and the politics of life and death.

The Aleksanteri Institute invites applications for two (2) Postdoctoral Researcher positions (starting from March 2026 or as agreed) in this project, led by PI Dr. Mikhail Nakonechnyi. The positions are full-time and fixed term for two (2) years, with the possibility of extension. The appointments include a six month probationary period in accordance with University of Helsinki regulations. Regular physical presence in Helsinki is required; these positions cannot be performed remotely.

• Archival fieldwork in state repositories in the U.S. South (Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina).
• Analysis of penitentiary records, coroner materials, gubernatorial papers, and statistical series.
• Qualitative analysis of official reports, inspector narratives, legislative debates, and prisoner accounts.
• Quantitative work involving demographic or medical statistics.
• Production of peer-reviewed articles and contribution to comparative analyses across subprojects.

We are recruiting 8-10 early-career researchers at different career stages (doctoral researchers and postdoctoral researchers for fixed-term employment) to the four UH-based research groups within the Centre of Excellence, Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS), funded by the Research Council of Finland. At a later stage, we will also recruit university researchers.

MePhiS will engage in philosophical and interdisciplinary scholarship that places the concept of suffering at the center of philosophical reflection and offers conceptual and argumentative tools for a deeper understanding of human engagement with affliction, starting from the meliorist (Lat. melior, better) idea that the world can and should be made better through active human efforts. According to meliorism, a positive outcome is neither guaranteed (optimism) nor impossible (pessimism). MePhiS aims at (1) reinterpreting ethical and other philosophical issues by emphasizing their entanglement with suffering; (2) integrating philosophical inquiries into suffering and meliorism with research emerging from key disciplines in the humanities, especially the history of ideas, literary studies, and theology and religious studies; and (3) critically renewing relevant philosophical and interdisciplinary methodology.

As a research group within MePhiS, the group Suffering and the Problem of Life in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion deals with the issues of evil, suffering, and the meaning of life, which are fundamental to various worldviews. While the problem of evil has been extensively addressed in the philosophy of religion, the group is not primarily concerned with common forms of theistic theodicies and their critiques.  It examines how both religious and secular viewpoints in contemporary philosophy theorize suffering, mortality, hope, and the meaning of life. The group is also interested in examining how ethics and philosophy/philosophy of religion might be reformulated in response to the issues highlighted by antitheodicy. Although the group’s main research focus is on contemporary debates, the earlier variations of optimism and pessimism in modern philosophy are potential research topics (e.g., how “Enlightenment optimism” and the pessimist tradition in early modern philosophy are related to meliorism and antitheodicy). The group explores and (re)theorizes fundamental ethical and existential problems concerning the human condition and the meaning of life in individual and social contexts.

We are recruiting 8-10 early-career researchers at different career stages (doctoral researchers and postdoctoral researchers for fixed-term employment) to the four UH-based research groups within the Centre of Excellence, Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS), funded by the Research Council of Finland. At a later stage, we will also recruite university researchers.

MePhiS will engage in philosophical and interdisciplinary scholarship that places the concept of suffering at the center of philosophical reflection and offers conceptual and argumentative tools for a deeper understanding of human engagement with affliction, starting from the meliorist (Lat. melior, better) idea that the world can and should be made better through active human efforts. According to meliorism, a positive outcome is neither guaranteed (optimism) nor impossible (pessimism). MePhiS aims at (1) reinterpreting ethical and other philosophical issues by emphasizing their entanglement with suffering; (2) integrating philosophical inquiries into suffering and meliorism with research emerging from key disciplines in the humanities, especially the history of ideas, literary studies, and theology and religious studies; and (3) critically renewing relevant philosophical and interdisciplinary methodology.

As a research team within MePhiS, the research team Future, Futurelessness, and Vernacular Responses to Suffering seeks researchers in the field of the study of religion to investigate both empirically and theoretically the vernacular responses to suffering within the contexts of lived spirituality and lived non-religion today. The questions we aim to explore include the following: What are the vernacular responses to suffering (including explanations, justifications, imaginations, and rituals), particularly in relation to human and non-human death, climate change, loss of nature, inequality, and changes in the media landscape? Whose suffering is deemed more justified than that of others? What perspectives and tools do various religious and non-religious worldviews, standpoints, and practices offer for addressing suffering today? Who are the vernacular authorities on the meaning of suffering, and how do they justify their roles? We are interested in the expressions of optimism, pessimism, and meliorism among caregivers of the elderly and the dying, young adults and migrants, or other groups that provide unique perspectives on suffering and potential ways to alleviate it.

The University of Helsinki Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme and the research group of Dr. Cezary Waszczak are seeking to hire a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to study Arabidopsis thaliana cell wall biology.

Scientific context and job description

We recently found that impaired acetylation of RG-I leads to a loss of epidermal cell adhesion (see preprint here). This project aims to achieve a genetic and molecular-level understanding of the impact of RG-I structure and acetylation on plant development, with a focus on cell adhesion and cellulose synthesis. Another core interest of the lab is RG-II (Waszczak et al., 2024), its dimerization and impact on cell expansion. In terms of methodology, we rely on forward genetic approaches, coupled with plant molecular biology and biochemistry. The successful candidate will be integrated into an international research team of experts in plant development and biochemistry and expected to participate in extensive collaborations, including mobility exchanges. Additionally, the candidate will be involved in supervision of doctoral researcher and M. Sc. students.