PhD candidate: developing an in vitro platform to investigate sex differences in renal drug handling

PhD candidate: developing an in vitro platform to investigate sex differences in renal drug handling

• Our goal: Reveal sex-specific mechanisms in renal drug transport by combining advanced in vitro models with physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling.
• Your colleagues: An interdisciplinary team of computational modellers, biologists, and biomedical engineers at MERLN, working together to understand renal (patho)physiology at multiple scales.

It has been widely recognized that sex differences impact disease progression and medication effects, but despite mandates for female inclusion in clinical trials, preclinical studies continue to overlook sex-specific variation. For example, the kidneys play a pivotal role in drug excretion, with 32% of the top 200 prescribed drugs being renally eliminated. However, the impact of sex differences on renal drug handling, and consequently pharmacokinetics, remains elusive. Sex differences in renal drug handling may arise from various factors, including anatomical, (epi)genetic and sex hormonal differences, and it is challenging to account for all these effects in vitro. Hereto, we aim to use an integrated in silico – in vitro approach, combining physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models with in vitro work to quantify what is happening at the individual proximal tubule cell level to provide accurate active transport predictions. Rodent models are inappropriate for such data, since their renal clearance differs from humans.

The PhD candidate will develop research questions, design and perform experiments, analyze and interpret data, write papers for publication, and present findings both internally and at conferences. They will ultimately submit and defend a PhD thesis. Approximately 5% of your time will be dedicated to tutoring, teaching, or supervising students.

Are you excited to push boundaries in kidney physiology and translational pharmacology? Then we’d love to meet you.

What you bring
It’s not about ticking boxes – it’s about your perspective, ideas, and drive. Does this sound like you?

• Scientifically curious and eager to explore complex questions – You hold (or soon will hold) a Master’s degree in biomedical sciences, bioengineering, pharmacology or a related field. Candidates from other backgrounds are welcome if they demonstrate strong research affinity.
• Hands-on and experimental – You bring experience or clear affinity with cell culture and laboratory-based research.
• Comfortable with molecular analyses – Techniques such as qPCR, Western blotting or immunofluorescence are familiar to you, or you are motivated to master them.
• Knowledgeable about human physiology – You understand the basics of organ-level physiology and are enthusiastic about deepening this knowledge.
• Open to interdisciplinary work – You enjoy connecting experimental work with computational insight.
• A clear communicator – You can express your ideas effectively in scientific English (reading, writing and speaking); Dutch is not required.
• Motivated and independent – You take initiative, manage your time well, and collaborate constructively within a diverse team.

Applicants will be asked to briefly describe their experience with cell culture, molecular assays, and human physiology. Prior experience in pharmacology or kidney research is welcome but not required.

Assistant Professor / Lecturer in Engineering Design (Circular Engineering)

Assistant Professor / Lecturer in Engineering Design (Circular Engineering)

• Our goal: To educate the next generation of engineers through design, making, and sustainability-driven innovation.
• Your colleagues: A close-knit, interdisciplinary team of engineering educators and technical specialists working within the rapidly growing Faculty of Science and Engineering.

We are seeking a collegial, enthusiastic and hands-on academic to join our growing engineering education team as Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Engineering Design. Collaborating with the wider educational teams, as an education focussed academic you will play a central role in shaping and delivering education that integrates engineering design, prototyping, and fabrication skills within our skills and project-based curriculum areas. The position focuses on helping students translate ideas into functional prototypes — combining design, fabrication, electronics, programming, and embedded systems in creative and sustainable ways.

You will help design and deliver courses and learning experiences that strengthen students’ ability to design, build, test, and iterate across a range of tools and technologies. This includes leading and coordinating teaching in our design and fabrication spaces, supervising student design projects, and contributing to the continued development of our interdisciplinary “Design and Make” strand. You will collaborate closely with colleagues across engineering disciplines to strengthen the integration of design and making in the engineering programmes.

Depending on your profile, you will also have opportunities to contribute to applied research or educational innovation related to engineering design, prototyping, or fabrication-based learning.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, coordinate, and deliver education in engineering design, fabrication, and prototyping.
• Lead education with workshop tools and machines.
• Lead the academic aspects of operation and management of the engineering technical learning spaces in collaboration with the laboratory and workshops coordinator team to assure and enhance education quality.
• Supervise and coach students working on design and build projects in multidisciplinary teams.
• Develop and improve facilities and workflows in the engineering education spaces.
• Contribute to curriculum development and innovation within the “Design and Make” educational strand and associate courses within the BSc Circular Engineering and BSc Business Engineering programmes.
• Collaborate with colleagues and external partners to develop authentic, industry-linked design challenges.
• Engage in educational research and scholarship to further enhance student outcomes on the engineering programmes and more widely.

What you bring
It’s not about ticking boxes – it’s about who you are and what you bring. Do you recognise yourself in this?

• Educationally driven designer – You connect engineering design, prototyping and sustainability into powerful learning experiences.
• Hands-on educator – You enjoy teaching in workshops, labs and project spaces and guiding students through making and building.
• Collaborative team player – You thrive in interdisciplinary teams and actively seek connection with colleagues and partners.
• Coach and project supervisor – You support students working in multidisciplinary design teams and help them grow as engineers.
• Innovator in education – You contribute to curriculum development and continuously improve how we teach design and fabrication.
• Academic professional – You hold a PhD in Engineering, Industrial Design or a closely related field and have a strong affinity with engineering education.
• International communicator – You are comfortable working in an international environment and communicate fluently in English. For non-Dutch speakers: willingness to learn Dutch to at least B1 in a reasonable period (English is the working language).

PhD Candidate on Inequality Dynamics at the Department of Macro, International and Labour Economics

Recent academic literature and economic policy debates have seen an increasing focus on both economic inequality, and the link between health and economic outcomes. This project’s starting point is the idea that these two concepts are inherently linked and that in particular, by neglecting health and lifespans, we mismeasure a crucial aspect of inequality. Given that health, mortality, income and wealth are correlated, measuring inequality in terms of the income and assets of the current population and ignoring differences in health and lifespans could be leading to misleading results if the primary objective is to capture differences in lifetime welfare.

What you do
Depending on your skills and interests, the project could include:

• conceptualizing measures of inequality that take into account differences in health-related quality of life and mortality rates.
• empirically estimating historical health and lifespan adjusted inequality metrics, documenting how they have evolved over time.
• Identifying the causal relationship between health and economic inequality to decompose observed changes in inequality.

This project will be part of an ongoing research theme on Inequality Dynamics, which includes multiple active PhD projects. This focuses on understanding how past, contemporary and (expected) future environmental, political, and technological transformations differentially impact economic activity and well-being of firms, individuals, and societies. Particular focus lies on understanding these transformational processes – the dynamics – and on the heterogeneous paths through which adjustments take place, where inequality enters as either a determining feature or as an observable outcome of transitions.

The position also includes a teaching obligation equivalent to 0,2 FTE.

Are you ready to set the course for the years ahead? Then we’d love to meet you.

What you bring
We’re not looking for checkboxes; we’re interested in who you are and what you bring. Do you recognize yourself in this?

• You are highly motivated and have strong technical skills who have a proven interest in economic research.
• You completed a research master equivalent to 120 ECTS (MSc, MPhil or MRes) in Economics, Econometrics, Computational Social Science or a related field.
• You have excellent communication and writing skills in English.
• You are preferably able to start before 1 September 2026, or at the latest 1 September 2027.

Post-doctoral researcher in Disinformation and European Democracy (4-year)

Post-doctoral researcher in Disinformation and European Democracy (4-year)

• Our goal: At Maastricht University and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences we research and teach about the challenges of contemporary Europe in a globalizing world from an interdisciplinary perspective. The process of European integration since 1945 and questions of European democracy, governance, and foreign policy are central to our research agenda. Our researchers study the EU and Europeanisation, yet they also contribute to debates on European society, global order, and take an interest in transnational history.
• Your colleagues: You will become a member of the Department of Political Science of Maastricht University (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/faculties/arts-and-social-sciences/departments/department-political-science) and will contribute to the Research Programme “Europe: Society, Politics and Global Order” (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/fasos-research-institute/research-programmes/europe-society-politics-and-global-order). You will contribute to the research agenda of disinformation with other colleagues in the fields of political science, history, law, economics and psychology.

What you do
This position is embedded in the so-called Disinformation & Democracy sector plan, funded by the Dutch government, which brings together researchers across faculties at Maastricht University (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Law, Psychology & Neuroscience, Business & Economics) to examine how disinformation shapes democratic processes, citizenship, and digital resilience. In addition to your own research agenda, you will play a central, facilitating, role in bringing all Maastricht researchers, working on disinformation, together.

Your responsibilities include:

• Conduct independent research relevant to disinformation and democracy under the umbrella of the sector plan, contributing to its goals and deliverables.
• Publish research in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and present findings at international conferences and workshops.
• Contribute to seminars, public events, or policy-outreach activities (e.g., stakeholder workshops, policy briefs).
• Collaborate closely with other researchers in FASoS (politics and history) and partner faculties (Law, Psychology, Business & Economics).
• Facilitate the organization of cross-faculty and national collaboration as part of the sector plan. Participate in administrative and organizational tasks related to the sector plan (reporting, funding proposals, coordination).
• Contribute to the teaching in a variety of BA and MA programmes at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, such as the BA and MA programmes in European Studies and the BA programme in Digital Society, and supervise BA and MA theses.

Are you ready to set the course for the years ahead? Then we’d love to meet you.

What you bring
We’re not looking for checkboxes; we’re interested in who you are and what you bring. Do you recognize yourself in this?

• A PhD (or equivalent) in political science, computational social science, digital humanities, or a related social science or humanities discipline, with strong methodological skills (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed).
• A demonstrated research track record, including publications or working papers, ideally in fields such as (online) dis-/misinformation, democratic theory, political behaviour, political economy, political history, political psychology, political communication, or public policy in Europe.
• Excellent organizational, project management, and coordination skills — ability to manage projects, meet deadlines, and work within a collaborative research environment.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Strong communication skills, with experience in dissemination of research beyond academia (e.g., policy engagement, public events) is a plus.
• A demonstrated interest in interdisciplinary collaboration, especially with legal and humanities scholars, psychologists, data scientists, or others engaged in the Disinformation & Democracy sector plan.

Junior researcher on data-driven public health at the Department of International Health

Junior researcher on data-driven public health at the Department of International Health

• Our goal: The project will examine how public health authorities collect, exchange, and use data for decision-making, and develop indicators to measure relevant technical and workforce capacities. The project will generate the first comparative evidence on how data use shapes local and regional public health policymaking in the context of the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The results will inform EU and national strategies for strengthening data-driven public health.
• Your colleagues: We are looking for a junior researcher to support the research line on data-driven public health at the Department of International Health at Maastricht University.

What you do

• Conduct literature reviews on data use, interoperability, and health information systems.
• Organise and contribute to expert consultations (Delphi surveys, interviews, focus groups) and/or design and implement surveys of public health authorities across several EU countries.
• Contribute to academic publications, policy briefs, and conference presentations.

Are you ready to set the course for the years ahead? Then we’d love to meet you.

What you bring
We’re not looking for checkboxes; we’re interested in who you are and what you bring. Do you recognize yourself in this?

• MSc degree in public health, epidemiology, health policy, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct literature reviews.
• Skills in qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups, Delphi studies) and/or quantitative research methods (e.g., statistical analysis, survey design).
• An interest in EU health data governance, including the EHDS regulation, and health information systems.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Strong organisational skills, ability to work independently, and interest in interdisciplinary, international collaboration

Preferred skills and experience

• Previous experience working with or studying regional public health authorities or municipal health departments.
• Skills in stakeholder engagement (e.g., organising workshops, liaising with policymakers).
• Publication record or conference presentations in relevant fields.