Analist Histologie en Moleculaire Biologie

Het VPDC is onderdeel van de afdeling Pathologie en verricht pathologische diagnostiek bij een breed scala aan diersoorten, waaronder gezelschapsdieren, landbouwhuisdieren, inheemse en uitheemse zoogdieren (zoals bruinvissen en zeehonden), vogels, amfibieën, reptielen en vissen. Dit onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd in opdracht van dierenartsen, dierentuinen en overheidsinstanties, met als doel een ziektebeeld te verklaren en de doodsoorzaak vast te stellen.

Het histologisch en moleculair biologisch laboratorium is een integraal onderdeel van het VPDC en ondersteunt patiëntenzorg, onderwijs en onderzoek. Je werkt met ingezonden biopten en excisies, en met weefsels die tijdens autopsie zijn verzameld. Daarnaast verricht het laboratorium werkzaamheden voor andere onderzoeksgroepen binnen het departement Biomolecular Health Sciences, de faculteit Diergeneeskunde en externe opdrachtgevers.

Je maakt deel uit van een team van vijf analisten. Je werkt nauw samen met collega-analisten en pathologen, waarbij samenwerking, kennisdeling en professionele ontwikkeling centraal staan.

In deze functie:

• werk je mee aan histologische diagnostiek, waaronder het uitsnijden van weefselmonsters, doorvoeren, inbedden, coupes snijden en het uitvoeren van histochemische en immunohistochemische kleuringen;
• draag je zorg voor de opslag en het beheer van materialen voor nader onderzoek, zoals weefselcollecties en biobankmateriaal;
• voer je zelfstandig moleculair-diagnostische testen uit;
• lever je een bijdrage aan het voorraadbeheer van chemicaliën en disposables;
• draag je bij aan kwaliteitsverbetering en aan de ontwikkeling van nieuwe kleuringen en technieken;
• beantwoord je vragen van en ondersteun je pathologen, specialisten in opleiding, onderzoekers en studenten op het gebied van histologie, immunohistochemie en moleculaire diagnostiek.

2 PhD's in JUST MATTER. Situated Material Engagement for Climate Justice

The two PhD projects are part of the NWO-funded Consortium JUST ART. Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research, a six-year project on climate justice and artistic research in the Caribbean and European parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and led by the University of Groningen. It offers 10 PhD positions at six universities in collaboration with the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and four universities of applied sciences. JUST ART PhD students will generate new knowledge and critically assess approaches that integrate scientific insights with artistic research to address climate justice. JUST ART PhDs will study and develop concrete cases to learn how art and artistic research can be embedded in ongoing and emerging work on climate justice. They will enhance expertise and skills to take artistic and art-based transformative action on climate justice and will contribute to theoretical frameworks, common methods, educational toolkits, and knowledge-sharing platforms in co-creation with project partners. For more information, see www.justart.info

The two PhD-positions are part of the JUST ART Theme Nr. 2 “JUST MATTER: Situated Material for Climate Justice,” in which Utrecht University collaborates with Avans University for Applied Sciences, particularly the Centre for Applied Research in Art, Design and Technology (CARADT) which operates at the intersection of art, design, and technology to develop new knowledge for education and society through practice-based research.

PhD 1: Material Engagement with Everyday Textiles

What can the history of everyday textiles – the things we wear, wash our dishes with, and the sofas we sit on – teach us about a climate-just use of fibres for the future? Sourcing, dyeing, spinning, and weaving natural and synthetic fibres is one of the oldest industries in the Netherlands. In every period and on every scale, the production of textiles has had a major socio-ecological impact, both visible and invisible; from Tilburg’s cloth manufacturers depending on the nearby Kempen heath sheep, and garancine (red dye from madder) factories polluting the rivers in 19th-century Zeeland, to relying on low-income home weavers and cheap factory workers. With sites of production now largely moved to other parts of the world, the consumption of textiles in the EU is one of the leading pressures on water and land use, on raw materials, and on greenhouse emissions worldwide. The need for just fibres at local and global scales is pressing. Possible solutions put forward by the European Environment Agency echo pre-industrial textile practices, such as moving towards local circular economies through prolonged use of more durable textiles (“slow fashion”) and manufacturing on small and local scales, structurally including reuse, repair, and recycling. But while things happened on smaller scales in the past, they were not always “just” either.

In this PhD project, you will combine research into textile heritage and historical making practices of everyday textiles – e.g., historical dyeing recipes, textile tools (e.g., spinning wheel, loom, industrial machinery), mending practices, fibre sources, and practices of recycling and reuse this PhD project studies how historical textile practices may generate new perspectives on the climate-just use of fibres.

PhD 2: Material Engagement with Common Ceramics

Like textiles, ceramic materials–clay, bricks, tiles, glass, and cement–are a bedrock of everyday living. The Netherlands still counts a substantial number of industrial ceramic factories (today more than 40, but hundreds in the past) in the eastern and southern part of the country, located alongside the major rivers (e.g. the Rhine and Meuse), where clay is sourced. However much we rely on ceramic materials, the (surface) mining and working of soils required to make them, impacts natural and social systems due to material extraction, waste handling, and most notably CO2 emissions. The high temperatures required for firing, melting, and drying ceramic materials, makes it one of the highest energy consuming industries in the Netherlands and in the world. As ceramic materials are traditionally associated with durability, with firing ensuring their stability, ceramics are typically considered a fire art.

This PhD project considers what happens when we seek new forms of ceramic durability through both historical and recent production processes. You will explore, for instance, what climate-just harvesting and processing of soils may look like in ceramics, and study historical and global examples of the production of ceramic materials, with a particular focus on heatless production processes (e.g., historical traditions of cold-glazing tableware with milk; glass decorated with oil paint; cold-baked bricks in Malawi; and ceramics produced by microbes, i.e., biomineralization).

You will:

• do research within one of the two themes stated above;
• present findings in an academic, artistic, and societal context (e.g. conferences, exhibitions, workshops, community gatherings);
• publish at least one peer-reviewed article or book chapter and contribute to other writing projects as required (including the JUST ART website);
• closely collaborate with the other project members of the Just Art Theme “JUST MATTER: Material Engagement for Climate Justice” based at the Utrecht University and Avans University for Applied Sciences, particularly the Centre for Applied Research in Art, Design and Technology (CARADT);
• teach during the 2nd, and 3rd year;
• actively contribute to the JUST ART Consortium community through participation in and organization of workshops with project partners, and participate in the JUST ART School’s writing retreats and other activities;
• actively engage with societal partners, e.g. organise collaborative knowledge exchange as well as educational and dissemination activities.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the collaborative nature of the project, regular physical presence is expected.

Apple platformspecialist

Als platformspecialist Apple werk je samen met je collega’s aan de verdere ontwikkeling van onze producten. Je draagt, samen met je collega-beheerders, zorg voor het dagelijks beheer van de werkomgevingen. Jouw focus als medior of senior specialist ligt op het verbeteren van de dienstverlening en het beheer van het Apple-platform.

Je hebt contact met veel verschillende collega’s binnen de universiteit en ondersteunt in jouw rol het onderwijs aan de Universiteit Utrecht en daarnaast allerlei belangrijke onderzoeken binnen de verschillende faculteiten. Je taken bestaan uit het volgende:

• Je identificeert, analyseert en lost 3e-lijns incidenten en problemen op volgens ITIL-processen.
• Je onderhoudt en (door)ontwikkelt kennisbanken, items en werkinstructies. Deze kennis draag je over aan de collega’s op de ICT Servicedesk en collega beheerders.
• Je draagt bij aan het optimaliseren van de ICT-werkplekomgevingen van de universiteit en komt samen met je team tot verbetervoorstellen.
• Je denkt actief mee over verbeteringen van onze endpoints binnen de organisatie en in het bijzonder op het Apple platform in onze Agile werkende afdeling (waardestroom) Campus en Werkomgeving
• Je volgt de laatste ontwikkelingen binnen het domein ICT-werkplekomgeving en past deze kennis toe in je werk.

Je maakt deel uit van het werkplekbeheerteam (WPE) binnen de afdeling (waardestroom) Campus & Werkomgeving en werkt samen met circa 12 collega’s aan diverse projecten zoals Intune of de nieuwe digitale werkplek. Bij ons vind je een team van betrokken collega’s, ruimte om te leren en je te ontwikkelen in een prettige balans tussen werk en privé.

PhD Position on Parameterized and Fine-Grained Complexity of NP-Hard Problems

In algorithm design, the paradigm of decomposition is omnipresent. In the 5-year ERC project COALESCE we aim for new fundamental insights on this paradigm, especially in the context of Parameterized Complexity and Fine-grained complexity of NP-hard problems.

As a PhD candidate in the COALESCE project, you will have the opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research in algorithms and computational complexity. You will:

• Conduct research on fundamental open problems in algorithm design and computational complexity.
• Develop a new theory for combinatorial decompositions (e.g., tree decompositions) and algebraic decompositions (e.g., matrix-rank–based approaches) of search spaces.
• Design and analyse algorithms inspired by these decompositions methods.
• Collaborate with your daily supervisor and other researchers of the COALESCE project team and algorithms and complexity group.
• Present your findings at international conferences and in journal papers.
• Contribute to the scientific community through discussions, reading groups, seminars, and light teaching or supervision tasks.

You will join the Algorithms and Complexity group at Utrecht University with Jesper Nederlof as daily supervisor. The starting date is negotiable, but should not be later than October 2026.

PhD position on Delta Climate Center (DCC)-funded project ‘Delta Values’

About the project

In the project ‘Delta Values’, academics together with educational and social partners in Zeeland province explore how communities of Zeeland can be supported to better coexist with their local environment, by engaging with local histories, and accessing the power of narratives to co-create hopeful narratives around life in a constantly shifting deltaic ecosystem.

Zeeland is a territory with a long history of living with floods and related issues. Climate change is today increasing the risk for both floods and drought, while sea level rise and the overexploitation of the fresh water table exacerbate salinisation. The goal of the project is to understand how residents have been living, live, and foresee their future in Zeeland, considering the presence of hazards, and how they adapt to the current and future changes of the environment. The PhD project is a pilot for an interdisciplinary learning trajectory of 4 years collaborating between different social sciences and the humanities, but also with a range of educational and societal partnerships.

The interdisciplinary focus is prominent in the PhD project. From a psychological perspective, it can be explored how people’s perceptions, social norms, and local practices are associated to people’s acceptance of local adaptation measures, including traditional and nature-based solutions.

There is a historical dimension to this project, which explores how adapting to change in a fluid, deltaic environment has been a feature of life in Zeeland for many centuries, and seeks to recover hopeful narratives of adaptation that can inform and inspire future visions for coexisting with nature, including natural hazards. The rich archival holdings and cultural heritage collections of Zeeland can be leveraged to inspire new generations by highlighting the resilience of their ancestors.

The cultural anthropological perspective explores people’s values and their relationship to their environment to understand how people feel connected to their place and their community, and how people frame the future of the landscape, their place and their community.

Key partnerships
The DCC hosts a group of scholars and PhD students working on three distinct iconic projects, Delta protein, Flexible deltas, and ProceZ (deltaclimatecenter.nl) with which the PhD is encouraged to network and seek collaboration opportunities. The Delta Values project shows promising areas of thematic points of reference with each of these iconic projects, while the nature and extent of specific collaboration may depend on the profile and interests of the selected candidate. The Delta Protein project seeks to explore and promote the potential of sustainable sea-derived proteins in Zeeland; a contribution of the Delta Values team could be to highlight the role that food production plays in driving attachment to deltaic landscapes, and considers ready availability of food resources as a motivator for living with risk in historical perspective. The Flexible Deltas project focuses on nature-based solutions and how people and nature can work to increase climate resilience; to this, the Delta Values team contributes a cultural and psychological perspective, seeking to integrate culture-based solutions with Flexible Delta’s nature-based one. The Delta Values team seeks to explore factors that can promote or deter communities or individuals from embracing nature-based solutions for climate resilience. Finally, the ProceZ project focuses on propelling a circular and biobased economy in Zeeland, to which the Delta Values team could contribute a historical and culturally grounded perspective. The communities of Zeeland have been drawn to constantly evolving deltaic landscapes in part due to the abundance of sustainable natural resources and materials growing there. The harvesting and use of renewable, low carbon materials like reed and willow are a part of Zeeland’s cultural heritage but could also play a key role in the future. The tensile strength of a material like reed or willow can be taken as a metaphor for the resilience and adaptability of Zeeland’s human and more than human communities. For any of these projects, collaborations with the Delta Values team could be developed into a final public-facing event involving various groups of residents, perhaps including a creative workshop and exhibition.

At Utrecht University, two communities are related to the DCC. The Water, Climate and Future Deltas (WCFD) is one of the thematic communities of the Pathways to Sustainability programme. The WFCD community is a platform for scientists and stakeholders to jointly work on ensuring resilient, sustainable deltas all over the world. The Utrecht University DCC community is involved in various DCC projects, in which members of the WFCD community – among others – are participating.

Your role in the project
You will focus on studying the relationship between human and the landscapes of Zeeland, and how this relationship has developed, changed, and is changing. This involves understanding the significance of the landscape for how people interact with one another, and how local ecosystems shape and are shaped by social relations at community level. You explore how people construct and use narratives of risk and behaviour of land and water and how they deal with changes in the landscape and risks. You will also study how different groups of residents communicate around risk, how they navigate the need to adapt to the changing landscape in their daily life, and how they envisage the future. Methods for engaging groups of residents will include interviews, document analysis, questionnaires and futuring, i.e. future thinking or imagination of the future.

The project ‘Delta Values’ is a developing network of partnerships, combining their own research and/or educational projects. Within the Delta Values team, the PhD student will have their own clearly defined tasks, co-developed with the supervisory team.

What will you do?

• collect and analyse data on past, current and future relationships with the landscape and attitudes to environmental adaptation by oneself and in collaboration with other DCC partners.
• collaborate and contribute to furthering the partnerships or attracting new ones.

Additionally, you are expected to:

• either relocate to Vlissingen, or commit to spending a substantial portion of working hours there, based at the pioneering and newly established Delta Climate Center (DCC).