PhD: impacts of human-induced air-water pollution on planetary health

Air and water are fundamental components of the Earth system and the planet’s primary life-support media. Since pre-industrial times, human-induced air and water pollution has become one of the most pervasive anthropogenic pressures. Nitrogen emissions from agriculture, fossil-fuel combustion, wastewater discharge, etc., modified by hydrological alteration and climate change, propagate through tightly coupled air-water-climate systems, affecting ecosystems and humans across regions and generations.

In this four-year study, you will quantify and map how human-driven nitrogen pollution from farming, fossil fuels, and wastewater moves and transforms through air and water and affects both ecosystem and human health worldwide using the global spatially explicit, integrated biogeochemistry model IMAGE-DGNM. You will couple the state-of-the-art biogeochemical model with health and ecological evidence to identify where and why health risks are highest, and how those risks have changed since the 1850s and may evolve to 2100 under different scenarios. Crucially, you will translate impacts into interpretable, comparable numbers, such as populations affected, biodiversity loss, and economic costs, so they can be weighed against the benefits of development. Finally, you will test future solutions under different climate and pollution-control pathways to help design region-specific, cost-effective policies for a healthier planet. We invite you to share your ideas and suggestions for this innovative project in your motivation letter.

The PhD candidate will be part of the research group of daily supervisor Dr Junjie Wang in the Department of Earth Sciences and co-supervised by Dr Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development.

Your development
A personalised training programme will be set up, reflecting your training needs and career objectives. About 20% of your time will be dedicated to this training component, which includes following courses/workshops as well as training on the job in assisting in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes of the department at Utrecht University. Through interactions with other scientists, the Municipality of Utrecht, the Dutch Geological Survey, and industry partners, you will be exposed to diverse career paths in both academia and the applied sector, helping you shape your professional future.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology

As an Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology, you will teach students and conduct research, both within the field of Clinical Psychology.

With respect to teaching, you will teach in the Dutch Bachelor’s programme in Psychology in the domains relevant to Clinical Psychology and the international Master’s programme in Clinical Psychology. Teaching involves (large-scale) lectures, (small-scale) instruction and individual supervision of clinical or research internships and research theses, along with more general coordination and administration activities.

With respect to research, your past and intended future research should fit the research aim of increasing the understanding of the etiology, underlying cognitive and emotional mechanisms, and treatment of (anxiety-related) psychopathology. It is preferred that your research approach is consistent with fundamental, lab-based studies (often with an experimental manipulation) with student participants and/or with more applied research (in collaboration with mental health institutes) with patient participants.

We place great importance on collaboration, open knowledge exchange, and a collegial atmosphere within the department. We are looking for team players who work well independently while also contributing actively to shared goals and a positive work environment.

The core tasks include:

• Participating in teaching at a bachelor’s and master’s level. Teaching involves individual supervision; lectures and workgroups in clinically oriented courses;
• Coordination of parts of the curriculum;
• Participating in a research programme ‘Cognitive and Emotional Processes’;
• Publishing research findings in international scientific journals;
• Contributing to the acquisition of external research funding for the benefit of the research programme;
• Contributing to collaboration, and a collegial atmosphere within the department.

For our education and research programs, experience with treating patients is desirable. This job position is open to those with a research orientation, as well as those who are more clinically oriented, and those who are strongly oriented towards a teaching career.

Promovendus Financiële kwetsbaarheid van gezinnen: een zorg van de overheid?

Voor dit onderzoek breng je relevante kinder- en mensenrechtenstandaarden in kaart over de reikwijdte van de verplichtingen van de overheid. Daarnaast doe je onderzoek naar de invloed van financiële kwetsbaarheid op de ontwikkeling van kinderen, de opvoedcapaciteiten van ouders en de rol die financiële problematiek (mogelijk) speelt in relatie tot de inzet van jeugdhulp en jeugdbescherming.

Je onderzoek voer je uit binnen UCERF. Onze toonaangevende onderzoeksgroep (ongeveer 20 onderzoekers) doet juridisch en interdisciplinair onderzoek naar verschillende aspecten van familie & recht. Daarin combineren we internationaal, rechtsvergelijkend, Europees en nationaal recht om een beter beeld te kunnen geven van de complexe juridische werkelijkheid.

Financiële problematiek kan een ontwrichtende werking hebben op gezinnen. Onderzoek laat zien dat (ernstige) financiële problematiek vrijwel alle leefgebieden negatief beïnvloedt. Geldzorgen kunnen leiden tot schaamte en eenzaamheid en heeft invloed op het zelfbeeld van en de interactie tussen ouders en kinderen. Kinderen die opgroeien in een gezin behorend tot de laagste inkomensgroep hebben een aanzienlijk grotere kans op jeugdhulp en jeugdbeschermingsmaatregelen. Tot voor kort was relatief weinig aandacht voor de rol van financiële problematiek bij beslissingen over jeugdhulp en jeugdbescherming. Door de toeslagenaffaire is dit toegenomen, maar belangrijke vragen zijn nog onbeantwoord.

Jouw promotieonderzoek brengt hier verandering in door zich te richten op het internationale kinder- en mensenrechtelijke toetsingskader van de positieve verplichtingen voor de staat bij financiële kwetsbaarheid van gezinnen. De mate van ondersteuning door gemeenten in het vrijwillig kader en de samenhang tussen jeugdhulp/jeugdbescherming en andere mogelijke vormen van hulpverlening bij financiële problematiek in het sociaal domein, zoals de schuldhulpverlening, de jeugd-GGZ, de WMO en Participatiewet. Jij onderzoekt juridische en sociaalwetenschappelijke literatuur, wet- en regelgeving en je doet nog nader in te vullen empirisch onderzoek (zoals dossieronderzoek/interviews) om zicht te krijgen op de financiële problemen waarmee een kind/gezin te maken heeft, het hulpaanbod van gemeenten en de weging van deze financiële problemen in de beoordeling van ontwikkelingsbedreigingen van een kind.

Gedurende een periode van vier jaar ga je onder begeleiding van diverse collega’s promotieonderzoek doen en word je opgeleid tot academicus/a in brede zin. Het streven is dat jouw onderzoek relevante resultaten genereert voor de Nederlandse maatschappij en rechtspraktijk. De vormgeving van het onderzoek gebeurt in samenspraak met je promotor, Wendy Schrama, en copromotoren Joost Huijer en Nadia Ismaïli.

Naast het opzetten en uitvoeren van je eigen onderzoek, houd je je ook bezig met het delen van kennis. Je neemt daartoe deel aan interne en externe bijeenkomsten over onderzoek, en je bent betrokken bij de organisatie van bijeenkomsten.

Er wordt werktijd voor je gereserveerd voor opleiding en ontwikkeling, zoals voor het bijwonen van promovendi cursussen. En je doet, voor een klein deel van je tijd, ervaring op in het geven van onderwijs.

PhD: does an island’s geologic history predict its ecosystem resilience today?

The department of Earth Sciences is seeking an enthusiastic candidate for a PhD project focussing on ecosystem health and resilience on islands, in context of geological and paleoenvironmental changes over millions of years.

Ecosystems are threatened by anthropogenic climate change and habitat loss. Within this context, ecosystem health is largely determined by ecosystem resilience: the capacity of a system to manage disturbance by resisting change, recovering from change, or adapting and benefiting as a result of change. Observational data cover only the first two aspects of resilience: resistance and recovery, as they act on ecological timescales. Adaptation, however, happens on evolutionary timescales, and its importance therefore remains unknown.

The aim of this PhD project is to study ecosystem resilience resulting from adaptation to disturbances on geological and evolutionary timescales. We focus on islands: ideal natural laboratories serving as isolated model systems of the natural world. We hypothesize that the intensity and frequency of paleoenvironmental changes is a predictor of ecosystem resilience to human-induced environmental change. We will determine whether islands with intermediate dynamic geological histories have produced ecosystems accustomed to environmental change, thus making them more resilient to disturbances today. Islands with geological histories characterized by long-term stability, or instead, with disturbances that are too severe, are expected to harbour more vulnerable ecosystems.

We will select a set of volcanic islands that are well-studied in terms of their geological and socio-ecological histories. Testing the hypothesis that an island’s ecosystem resilience can be predicted from its paleoenvironmental history requires the following:

1. Reconstructing the paleoenvironmental history of islands. The PhD candidate will compile data on the timing and severity of disruptions, focussing on three aspects:

1a. Sea level fluctuations. The PhD candidate will reconstruct insular environmental changes in response to sea level fluctuations, particularly during the Pleistocene.

1b. Volcanism. The PhD candidate will compile data on 1) the ages of volcanic activity; 2) the type of volcanism; 3) catastrophic explosive caldera eruptions and volcano/island collapses and their ages.

1c. Human settlement. Following initial human settlement, island socio-ecological systems have gone through different phases (cultural, socioeconomic, technical, demographic, etc.). The PhD candidate will compile data on these past societal dynamics.

Besides this data compilation, the project will focus on one archipelago as case study: Cape Verde. We will date volcanic activity through field and laboratory work, using an efficient new approach using zircon minerals found in beach sands.

2. Quantifying island-ecosystem resilience. Ecosystem resilience, including resistance, recovery and adaptation, can be approximated by ecological parameters such as taxonomic, functional and (phylo)genetic diversity, and traits such as niche breadth. The PhD candidate will produce a proxy of ecosystem resilience based on multiple parameters.

3. Analysing the predictive power of paleoenvironmental history on ecosystem resilience. After separate analysis of both the predictor (the paleoenvironmental history of an island), and the response variable (ecosystem resilience), the PhD candidate will perform statistical analyses to test the predictive power of paleoenvironmental history on ecosystem resilience in response to human-induced environmental changes.

The PhD candidate will be part of the research group of daily supervisor Lydian Boschman and promotor Douwe van Hinsbergen at the department of Earth Sciences, and will be co-supervised by Sietze Norder (island biogeography and human-nature relationships; department of Sustainable Development) and Valérie Reijers (ecology and ecosystem adaptation; department of Physical Geography), all part of the Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University.

Your development
A personalised training programme will be set up, reflecting your training needs and career objectives. About 20% of your time will be dedicated to this training component, which includes following courses/workshops as well as training on the job in assisting in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes of the department at Utrecht University. Through interactions with other scientists, the Municipality of Utrecht, the Dutch Geological Survey, and industry partners, you will be exposed to diverse career paths in both academia and the applied sector, helping you shape your professional future.

Research Associate Study of Artistic Collaboration in Renaissance Perugia

The project A Computational Study of Artistic Collaboration in Renaissance Perugia develops a set of new digital tools, drawing on computer vision, artificial intelligence, and 3D modelling, to unravel workshop dynamics and artistic collaboration in Early Modern Italy. Focusing on Perugia c. 1475-1525, it proposes a new digital framework for the study of art and reshapes understanding of Renaissance artistry and its collaborative foundations.

We are looking for a highly motivated and engaged researcher to join the project team. The ideal candidate will have a strong academic track record in art history of early modern Italy, ideally with a focus on Perugia, a collegial approach, and the ability to work independently to pursue rigorous research within a collaborative project.

You will collaborate closely with the PI and the technical members of the team and engage with museums and art historical institutions in Italy and beyond helping to position the project at the forefront of scholarly and public activities on digital approaches for the study of art.

The main duties and responsibilities include:

• you will be responsible for establishing the contextual foundations that enrich the art historical basis of the project. This will include compiling a comprehensive image corpus of artworks produced in Perugia and surrounding regions (c.1470–1525), identifying securely attributed works for training the algorithms, and selecting representative case studies for cross-method computational testing. This work includes coordinating digitization efforts, curating metadata, and establishing ground truth datasets. You will also be expected to contribute to the development of a critical framework for interpreting the computational outputs. The ideal candidate will bring to this a background of research in this field that will enable detailed historical contextualization, together with a robust interpretive lens for engaging with computational results;
• engaging with museum partners and societal stakeholders and contributing to knowledge exchange and societal impact activities. Public outreach and education are crucial aspects of the project and of the Associate researcher’s role. An ability to communicate effectively and to engage with a broad spectrum of audiences is essential;
• contributing to the organization and delivery of workshops, and a major international conference connected to the project;
• presenting research findings at international conferences and workshops;
• contributing to academic publications as co-author in leading international peer-reviewed journals, contributing to high-impact collective publications, including an edited volume, planned in the context of this project;
• supporting the supervision and intellectual development of more junior project members, such as research assistants or interns;
• working collaboratively and collegially with colleagues across disciplines;
• participating actively in the intellectual life of the research group.