Postdoctoral Fellowship (17) at Max Planck Institute, Germany

We currently offer a Postdoc position (m/f/d) – Time-Resolved Soft X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy of Correlated Materials

The Department of Physical Chemistry, led by Prof. Martin Wolf, is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to join our group working on Ultrafast Core-Level Spectroscopy of strongly correlated and 2D van der Waals materials, in collaboration with Prof. Jens Biegert (ICFO, Barcelona).

The successful candidate will explore ultrafast phase transitions, Mott physics, and coupled electron–lattice dynamics in correlated materials employing our newly developed lab-based time-resolved soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (tr-XAS) beamline. The position offers the opportunity to play a leading role in designing and performing time-resolved experiments, analyzing spectroscopic data, and interpreting results in close collaboration with theoretical partners.

The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research is one of 85 institutes and research centers of the Max Planck Society (MPG) for the advancement of science. Our focus is on basic medical research. We currently employ around 270 people in science and administration, mainly at our location in Heidelberg. Another location for our institute is currently being established in Heilbronn. We are also part of the Health + Life Science Alliance Heidelberg Mannheim, an association of the region’s leading life science research institutions.

The MPG strives for gender equality and diversity. We welcome applications from all backgrounds. As the MPG has set itself the goal of employing more people with severe disabilities, applications from people with severe disabilities are expressly welcome. In addition, the MPG wants to increase the proportion of women in areas where they are underrepresented. Women are therefore expressly encouraged to apply.

The Department of Cellular Biophysics (Prof. Dr. Joachim P. Spatz) is looking for a chemist (m/f/d) with knowledge and skills in Macromolecular Chemistry/Polymer Science or Colloid Chemistry for research in the field of advanced battery cells.

The research group of Matthias Muhar at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, investigates how cells orchestrate the turnover of the proteome during cell state transitions, such as in response to stress or developmental cues. Their research combines high-throughput genetics, proteomics, stem cell models of differentiation and cell biology approaches. Key questions include how cells regulate global rates of protein turnover, how chemical modifications mark proteins for removal and how mutations in the underlying pathways give rise to developmental disorders. The group offers an interdisciplinary and highly collaborative environment with access to state-of-the-art facilities and technologies.

The lab is searching for a postdoctoral researcher (m/f/d) to join the team and drive an independent project exploring the regulation of protein turnover during neurogenesis. We are seeking a motivated, independent wet-lab scientist with experience in proteomics to contribute to ongoing research projects and publications.

The Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (MPI-BI) is one of more than 80 independent research institutions within the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. The Institute operates at two locations southwest of Munich: Seewiesen and Martinsried. Approximately 500 staff members from over 50 countries investigate the fundamentals of how organisms adapt to constantly changing environments and achieve complex goals, abilities we call “biological intelligence”. 

Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d) in Small-Animal MRI and Cross‑Species Neuroimaging

The Technical University of Munich, TUM University Hospital, and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (MPI‑BI) are seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher with expertise in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), biological/physiological sciences, and a strong interest in experimental work with small animals. The position is part of the interdisciplinary project WildBrain, which investigates how environmental transitions shape neural plasticity and behavioural individuality across mice and humans.

The successful candidate will join a collaborative team spanning TUM, MPI‑BI (Martinsried/Seewiesen), the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin), and Technische Universität Dresden, and will work closely with experts in neuroimaging, behavioural neuroscience, and cross-species data integration.

We recently established that towering behavior is a mechanism for collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes. While we found no clear evidence for division of labour in clonal population towers, social dynamics may differ in heterogeneous populations with, e.g., mixed relatedness, sexes, life stages, and underlying states. We showed that population heterogeneity does not produce behavioral modulation in mixed C. elegans groups in food-abundance conditions, but suggest the effect may fundamentally differ under stressful food-scarcity where collective behavior can have direct fitness consequences.

For this project, we aim to understand how social mechanisms shape the behavioral and population dynamics of collective dispersal in heterogeneous populations. Research will involve designing, executing, and analyzing experiments to address this question. Potential research angles may include, but are not limited to: cooperation and altruism, competition and social cheating, and communication and coordination. This project will adopt a primarily laboratory-based approach and may incorporate field work in Landkreis Konstanz. Project specifics will be tailored based on the skills, experience, and ideas of the successful candidate.

The Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science in Göttingen conducts interdisciplinary research into pressing issues of social and political change, with a particular focus on conflict, inequality, the erosion of democracy, and processes of social transformation. At the Institute, the Research Group: Teachers, Inequality and Collective Action is inviting applications for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/d) (full-time for three years with an expected starting date of 1 September 2026).

The newly established research group “Teachers, Inequality and Collective Action” (TICA) led by Dr. Hania Sobhy, studies teachers as central agents in the contemporary restructuring of mass schooling. Its research focuses on how teachers’ social, political, and professional profiles shape their orientations toward inequality, educational transformation, and collective action. Methodologically, the group integrates institutional mapping, survey research, and qualitative analysis. TICA’s empirical work is primarily focused on the Middle East and North Africa.

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching offers an opportunity to participate in a postdoctorate programme within the division Plasma Dynamics (PD) to perform research activities at the ASDEX Upgrade fusion experiment (AUG). We are looking for a Postdoctoral Researcher in Experimental Physics (m/f/d).

The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen is one of the world’s leading research institutions in the field of solar physics and planetary research with around 300 employees. The interdisciplinary research focus is the investigation of the development, diversity and dynamics of planets, moons, small bodies, the sun and solar-like stars. The MPS develops and operates scientific instruments for current and future space missions (e.g. ESA, NASA), and carries out cosmochemical laboratory investigations of meteorites as well as numerical modeling on state-of-the-art supercomputers.

We invite applications for a Postdoctoral Position (m/f/d) in rotating convection and 2D turbulence.

Rotating convection and 2D turbulence are fundamental problems in geophysical and astrophysical fluid dynamics. This project will focus on understanding the nonlinear dynamics of rotating flows and turbulent transport, with applications to the Earth’s dynamo and to large-scale flows in Jupiter and Saturn.

The Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science in Göttingen conducts interdisciplinary research into pressing issues of social and political change, with a particular focus on conflict, inequality, the erosion of democracy, and processes of social transformation. At the Institute, the Department of Political Institutions and Conflict is inviting applications for the position of Postdoctoral Fellow (m/f/d) in Political Science (full-time for three years, start day September 1, 2026 or earlier).

The newly established department “Political Institutions and Conflict” (led by Ursula Daxecker) studies the relationship between political institutions and conflict, broadly construed. Research in the department centers on three themes: (1) institutions and political violence, (2) democratic politics in transformation, and (3) the political economy of electoral integrity. The department’s empirical focus is on the Global South and combines advanced quantitative methods, such as survey-based and observational causal inference designs, with qualitative approaches, such as fieldwork and interviews. Through this research, the department aims to develop novel insights for important challenges in contemporary society, including the rise of extreme strategies and violence, threats to electoral integrity, and democratic erosion.

The Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science in Göttingen conducts interdisciplinary research into pressing issues of social and political change, with a particular focus on conflict, inequality, the erosion of democracy, and processes of social transformation.  At the Institute, the Department of Political Institutions and Conflict is inviting applications for the position of Postdoctoral Fellow (m/f/d) in Political Violence (full-time for three years, start day September 1, 2026 or earlier).

The newly established department “Political Institutions and Conflict” (led by Ursula Daxecker) studies the relationship between political institutions and conflict, broadly construed. Conflict is inherent in politics, but can be managed peacefully or break out in the open and turn violent. Research in the department explores whether and how political, economic, and social institutions create or reduce the potential for conflict, how structural changes have changed institutions’ ability to manage conflict, and how these shifts affect political outcomes downstream. Through this research, the department aims to produce novel insights for important challenges in contemporary society, including the rise of extreme strategies and violence, threats to electoral integrity, and democratic erosion.

Open Postdoc position is available at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), co-supervised by Prof. Yafang Cheng (Director at MPIC) and Dr. Wenjun Meng (Project Team Leader at MPIC). The project aims at developing an advanced integrated assessment modeling framework that links socio-economic, environmental, and technological factors to understand the impacts of climate and energy policies.

The Integrated Assessment Modeling team at the Aerosol Chemistry Department of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) develops and applies modeling frameworks that connect economic systems, energy transitions, climate impacts, and air pollution to support policy-relevant analysis. The group integrates insights from climate science, atmospheric/aerosol research, and economic modeling, with interests including improved spatial resolution and machine-learning-enabled approaches for policy analysis.

We are creating the world’s most realistic human and animal avatars for use in research, film, virtual reality, biology and medicine. Using unique 3D & 4D capture facilities, machine learning, computer vision and advanced graphics, we are modeling every nuance of how humans and animals look and move. We develop algorithms to estimate human shape and motion in images, videos and RGB-D sequences. Our approaches define the current state of the art, and we are constantly pushing these methods and systems in order to achieve a better accuracy. Our future work aims at generating automatic 3D pose, shape and texture of animals from images acquired in-the-wild.