Postdoctoral Fellowship (11) at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands

As part of the CrossScale project within the DeepNL Programme, you will take a leading role in investigating how small-scale geological heterogeneities shape reservoir-scale behaviour and uncertainty. Your work will focus on bridging fine-scale geological detail and field-scale reservoir models by developing and applying robust upscaling strategies, and by assessing how these choices influence uncertainty at the reservoir and field scale.

You will build a suite of high-resolution reservoir models for a sector of the Groningen field using advanced geomodelling workflows. These models will capture realistic geological uncertainty across different levels and scales of heterogeneity. Through numerical simulations with open-DARTS, you will evaluate how geological complexity translates into reservoir performance and establish robust uncertainty bounds.

In parallel, you will develop and test a second set of reservoir models aimed at evaluating upscaling techniques and Representative Elementary Volume (REV) scales identified within the wider CrossScale project. You will also explore the integration of newly developed constitutive relations from other DeepNL projects into these simulations, assessing how these advanced formulations affect predicted reservoir behaviour.

Both the high-resolution and upscaled models will be calibrated using assisted history-matching methods in open-DARTS, incorporating production and compaction data from the Groningen field. Rather than reproducing the full production history, you will focus on recent data, and assess model quality through production forecasting and comparison with the most recent field observations.

You will benchmark the performance of the reference and upscaled models against models built using conventional workflows that do not employ the new upscaling methodology. This comparison is expected to demonstrate clear improvements in history-match quality and production-forecast reliability, highlighting the importance of appropriate REV identification and carefully designed upscaling strategies.

We are opening a 2 year postdoctoral researcher position funded by NWO on experimental mechanics and material behaviour modelling of thermo-mechanical processes occuring in geothermal energy extraction.

Geothermal energy is a local and essential source for heating in the energy mix of the future and must be sustainably scaled up. However, seismicity is a major societal concern. Currently, conservative assessments of seismicity (i.e., predicting higher seismicity than likely to occur) are one reason for projects not passing the exploration stage, and seismic activity related to gas extraction has resulted in a public acceptance risk of all subsurface activities. In this project, we are going to address the following scientific question: ‘When can reservoir cooling in sedimentary geothermal projects lead to significant seismic activity?’ The project combines laboratory experiments, geophysical field monitoring and numerical reservoir modelling.      

This postdoctoral researcher will work on three main tasks. The first task is to investigate the thermo-mechanical and hydraulic properties of geothermal reservoir rock, focusing on thermal expansion and heterogeneity in permeability. This will be done under relevant stress-temperature conditions. The second task is to work on the relation between thermal expansion and fault slip under triaxial stress states. The third task is to work together with another postdoctoral researcher focused on numerical modelling to develop a constitutive model that can be adapted for use in numerical modeling of specific reservoirs. The candidate will work within the Rock Mechanics lab and in conjunction with the Rock Mechanics team of PhDs and PDs, and will be embedded in the lively Geothermal Theme of TU Delft. Moreover, you will work closely with the other two postdoctoral researchers hired in the project to work on the reservoir modeling and geophysical data.   

Organ-on-Chip (OoC) systems are microfluidic cell culture devices that recapitulate in-vivo-like microenvironments to allow the realistic expression of the functions of human tissues and organs in-vitro. Such microphysiological systems are more representative models than existing in-vitro cell cultures, and aim to enhance pre-clinical screening of the effect of drugs and other compounds on the human body.

The 4-year “Phoenix” project targets specifically the development of an advanced OoC platform capable of electrical recording and mechanical stimulation of cardiac and neuro-muscular tissues, as well as sensing of their contractile force. This ambitious goal will be achieved through an incremental and carefully-structured workplan and the fertile collaboration of multiple expert international partners, both academic and industrial, bio-technological and clinical. In this stimulating and inspiring context, you will experience the opportunity to be active in a truly multi-disciplinary research initiative.  You will contribute with innovative ideas and solutions for the integration in an existing OoC platform of micro-electro-mechanical sensors for accurate quantification of contractile force from cardiac and neuromuscular tissues. The research will involve materials selection for compatibility and functionality, conception and design of the sensing system, its modelling and microfabrication, as well as characterization and testing of the proposed solutions before biological validation. 

We are looking for a Postdoctoral Researcher to develop generative AI methods for nanoparticle (NP) drug delivery design. You will join the research group of Dr. Sepinoud Azimi, working within the NAP4DIVE project (Horizon Europe), a consortium including AstraZeneca, TU Eindhoven, University of Gothenburg, Chalmers, and FinnAdvance.

Nanoparticle drug delivery is a high-dimensional, multi-objective design problem: formulations consist of multiple interacting components whose therapeutic behaviour changes after administration due to biological interactions (protein corona formation, degradation, payload release). Current AI approaches treat NP design as static property prediction. This project takes a fundamentally different approach: using generative models to propose novel NP formulations and coupling them with explainability methods so that design decisions can be understood, validated, and trusted.

The project addresses an urgent challenge in the aviation sector: decarbonising short-haul regional flights with routes up to 1,000km. Today, these account for nearly half of global departures and over 19% of aviation emissions, yet there is still no scalable, zero-emission solution for this segment. Battery-electric propulsion stands out as the most viable path to net-zero regional aviation, within a relevant timeframe. Conventional fuel-based aircraft have sufficient range to cover regional routes with ease. For electric aircraft however, reducing aerodynamic drag directly translates to increased usable range, expanding market reach.

Electric propulsion systems open up opportunities for novel configurations and capabilities. This project focuses on the development, application, and validation of tools which allow the designer to fully exploit electric propulsion capabilities when considering the integration of the wing-nacelle-propeller-heat exchanger (IPU) system. This IPU system is a key determinant of drag, as well as thermal and propulsor efficiency. The project explores novel design solutions for the IPU system, including validation through high-fidelity wind-tunnel and numerical simulations.

This post-doc position focuses on the development of reduced order models for rapid design space exploration of integrated propulsion system arrangements. These models, trained on higher fidelity data, allow for the accurate prediction of lift and drag characteristics, including laminar-turbulent transition and separation line prediction. The models will be applied to a distributed electric propulsion concept, with the most promising configurations adapted into a modular wind tunnel test model by project partners.

Foreseen breakthroughs of the DISRUPT project are:

1) New material and transistor concepts for digital RF power generation. 2) Innovative CMOS controllers in combination with revolutionary (gate-)segmented LDMOS/GaN technologies, containing thousands of small RF-power transistors, that can be individually controlled with picosecond accuracy. 3) Broadband coherent signal generation using new waveforms. 4) New distributed RF-power signal generation and combining, enabling wideband and highly energy-efficient transmitters. 5) Seamless integration of serial high-speed digital data transport, clock recovery, signal processing (DSP), wideband low-power error detection using novel ADC architectures, and artificial intelligence-based error correction.

The unique DISRUPT approach offers unprecedented functionality, integration, and efficiency for wireless systems in terrestrial and satellite applications. When DISRUPT is successful, the energy consumption of wireless networks is expected to be reduced by 50% compared to following current technological development paths. This Post Doc position (PD.A), in the DISRUPT framework, is focused on Digital transmitter (DTX) System Integration.

Supercritical CO2 power cycles enable compact, high-efficiency power conversion, but they pose major challenges for turbomachinery integration and loss control at high rotational speeds. In this project, TU Delft works with an industrial partner developing high-speed motors and generators. The aim is to design, build, and test a high-speed generator that will later be integrated into a hermetically sealed turbogenerator module.

In this postdoctoral position, you will lead the design of a 1–2 MW net-power sCO2 test setup and the optimization of the associated turbomachinery. In parallel, you will perform detailed CFD studies (using LES or DNS) to quantify windage losses in Taylor–Couette-type configurations with supercritical CO2 and strongly variable properties. Your outcomes will directly feed into loss estimattions, design rules, and specifications for the demonstrator.

In this project, you will develop flight control laws for a novel hybrid unmanned air vehicle (UAV) concept, combining hover, transition and forward flight. You will develop a MATLAB/SIMULINK model for control law development and simulation testing.

Working in a team, you will validate the developed control laws through scaled flight testing. Protoypes will be built to validate both the UAV design and the flight control laws. You will work with the team to implement and the control laws on an autopilot, and analyze test flight results.

We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to join a collaborative project between TU Delft (Simon Gröblacher’s group) and AMOLF (Ewold Verhagen’s group), centered around the development of cutting-edge optomechanical sensors. The position is embedded within QSTeM, a recently established Testbed for mechanical sensing led by Dr. Letizia Catalini with the purpose of accelerating the introduction of optomechanical sensor technology to the market. At QSTeM novel optomechanical sensors are designed, benchmarked, and developed with both academic and industrial partners.

The research conducted within this framework goes beyond fundamental proof-of-priniciple exploitment of the intrinsically high sensitivity of optomechanical platforms. Targeting applications ranging from bio-medicine to defense, we are addressing critical practical aspects such as robustness, reproducibility, and system integration and packaging. This applied orientation creates an excellent opportunity to explore meaningful research questions while engaging directly with the challenges and needs faced by industry.

The successful candidate will support the on-going sensor development, including on-chip spectroscopy, IR- and pressure-sensing, as well as future developments, such as accelerometry and magnetic field sensing. Moreover, the postdoc will actively contribute to measurements and benchmarking services for external partners. This includes performing characterization of sensor devices developed by collaborators, supporting QSTeM’s mission as a reliable and high-performance testing facility.

At the Gröblacher Lab we have a vision: we thrive to be an inclusive place where a diverse mix of talented people want to come, to learn, to live their passion and do their best work. We are dedicated to promoting equality, creating a safe environment for everyone, and believe deeply in diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, age, socioeconomic background and all the other fascinating characteristics that make us different. We truly think diversity is a strength and working in a diverse environment, and being exposed to a variety of perspectives makes us stronger scientists and better human beings.