Interdisciplinary PhD position Young Academy Groningen 2025

Job title:

Interdisciplinary PhD position Young Academy Groningen 2025

Company:

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Job description

OrganisationJob descriptionWe are looking for talented students who wish to design their own PhD research project on an interdisciplinary topic within the scope of the research expertise of Young Academy Groningen members (please visit www.rug.nl/research/young-academy). Two PhD positions are available to conduct research within the themes of the projects. Project 1 is listed below and project 2 will be advertised later. As a PhD student, you will develop your own research project in consultation with the associated supervisor(s). You will conduct independent and original academic research and report results via peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ultimately a PhD thesis. The PhD thesis has to be completed within four years. Being part of a cutting-edge research programme, you will receive research training as well as a varied educational training program including transferable skills and future (academic or non-academic) career training for after the PhD trajectory, in the context of our Career Perspective Series.Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the supervisors of the project for further details and clarifications on the research project and on the application process.Project 1. Project title: What you see is what you get: harnessing animal eye design to develop new vision systemsSupervisors:
Dr Casper J. van der Kooi (Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biophysics)
Prof Dr Marcos Guimaraes (Associate Professor in Optospintronics)Project description:
How do insects see the world? And what can we learn from animal eyes to develop new sensors, such as smoke detectors, minute surgical cameras or autonomous vehicles? The animal kingdom offers a bewildering diversity of eye types, many of which see the world entirely different from humans: from bee and butterfly eyes that see ultraviolet, to beetle eyes that see near-infrared or the enormous camera-type eyes of deep-sea squid. This project charts two key aspects of animal vision – spatial resolution (visual sharpness) and colour sensitivity. It uses the acquired knowledge on insect eye design to establish the core principles of how multi-aperture vision systems are optimised to different visual tasks and environments.The candidate will measure the visual fields of a diverse group of insects with the aim to establish how insect eyes are adapted to different environments/conditions. Using a combination of optical, microscopy, image processing, mathematical modelling and ecological comparative methods, we will perform a large-scale comparative study on insect eyes. The candidate will deploy our recently developed Goniometric Research Apparatus for Compound Eyes (GRACE, Munos-Arias et al. 2022 ) for comparative studies on different insect groups.Interdisciplinary focus:This project links

• Disciplines: comparative biology, optics and biophysics.
• Theory: optical theory provides us with specific predictions as to what eye designs would work best for specific visual tasks. Biological theory provides predictions about energy efficiency and behaviour.
• Fundamental and applied research. We will establish the fundamental characteristics of vision for different types of tasks and environments, which will help design new artificial, multi-aperture camera types.

QualificationsThe ideal candidate

• Has an MSc degree in Biology, Life Science and Technology, Physics or a related field.
• Is willing to develop skills in other disciplines.
• Has clear interest in sensory systems.
• Does not shy away from programming and coding.
• Is willing to work with insects and possibly fieldwork (locally and abroad).
• Has a good command of English.

Conditions of employmentAs an employee PhD candidate, you fall under the Collective Labor Agreement of Dutch Universities. A separate salary scale with four steps applies to PhD candidates: P0 to P3. The current level of the corresponding salary and more information about the collective employment conditions can be found on the VSNU Cao Dutch Universities external link page. The 2022-2023 CLA version is accessible via this link:

Expected salary

Location

Groningen, Groningen

Job date

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 02:56:35 GMT

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