PhD Position Joint Motion Monitoring Devices for Home Environments

Job description

The Department of Sustainable Design Engineering in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and the department of Biomechanical Engineering, faculty of Mechanical Engineering are seeking a hardworking and motivated PhD candidate to join us for a full-time, fully funded, 4-year project. You will be supervised by prof. K.M.B. Jansen and dr. G. Smit.

The Challenge

Healthcare systems worldwide face a dual and growing challenge: costs are rising while the availability of healthcare professionals is decreasing. At the same time, millions of people with chronic mobility conditions—such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Stroke, and Parkinson’s Disease—struggle to maintain independence in their daily lives. We urgently need new approaches that can bridge the gap between hospital-based care and remote patient management.

These will be developed with the ‘Care is coming home!’ program. This program will be executed the coming 5 years by a large consortium consisting of 2 technical universities (TU Delft, UTwente), 6 hospitals (Amsterdam UMC, Erasmus MC, Leiden UMC, Maartenskliniek, Maastricht UMC, Radboud UMC), 13 companies (Able Human Motion, Biomex, Cue2Walk, DanuSports, Kinetic Analysis, Lode Holding, Madglove, ModelHealth, Moveshelf, Orikami, Sabender (Enterprising Company), Trinoma, VicarVision), 1 rehabilitaion centre (Daan Theeuwes Centrum) and 5 patient organisations (Hersenletsel.nl, Hersenstichting, Parkinson Vereniging, ParkinsonNL, ReumaNederland).

As a PhD candidate in this project, you will contribute to a multi-disciplinary research effort focused on empowering individuals with chronic mobility limitations. You will help design, develop, and evaluate innovative medical technology that enables people to manage their health at home—safely, independently, and with confidence.

More specifically, for this position we aim to develop novel measurement devices for monitoring joint motion in chronically ill patients in home environments, enabling quantitative assessment of disease progression. For rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, you will develop a finger stiffness measurement device to assess finger joint dexterity. To unobtrusively assess changes in joint movement in stroke patients without relying on cameras, you will also develop a drift compensation algorithm for combined IMU and stretch sensor configurations.

As a PhD candidate in this project you will collaborate in particular with Erasmus MC, ReumaNederland and Madglove

Job requirements
Your profile:

• You hold a master’s degree in biomechanics design, biomechanical engineering or equivalent.You have prove skills in prototyping and testing as well as dynamics and programming
• You have affinity with electronics
• You have high-level analytical, and organizational skills
• A strong interest in medical technology
• Affinity with giving education, as you will spent some time on educational tasks
• You are fluent in English, both spoken and written. For working with patients knowledge of Dutch is a pre
• Affinity for working with patients and clinicians.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Industrial Design Engineering
Matching the evolution of people with the speed of the revolution of technology. This is the focus of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). Delft designers act as a bridge between advances in technology and the needs of people, organisations and society to create products, services and systems with purpose.IDE is a leader in design research across the application areas of mobility, sustainability and health, as well as its development of design tools and methods. A 350-strong research team and over 2,000 students work together in our inspiring hall, labs and studios.In close cooperation with industry, the public sector and NGOs we rehearse possible futures in research and education to design for a complex future.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

PhD Position Textile-Form Weaving Design Methods for Digital Design-Fabrication Workflows

Job description

INTERWeuVEN is a Horizon Europe research project that combines European textile heritage with emerging digital manufacturing technologies. The project develops 2D–3D Textile-Form Weaving (TFW) - a design and fabrication approach in which woven textile structure and product form are produced simultaneously. By integrating computational design with digital Jacquard weaving, TFW enables on-demand, zero-waste garment manufacturing: cutting and sewing steps are removed from conventional production processes entirely.

INTERWeuVEN brings together 16 academic and industry partners across Europe and Canada to develop design tools, digital interfaces, robotic fabrication methods, and business models that integrate with circular material systems - including regenerative fibres and textile recycling flows.

Within INTERWeuVEN, this PhD researcher will investigate how design methods and digital workflows can connect 2D–3D garment design with Textile-Form Weaving fabrication, working primarily with partners within the project's System and Digitalisation WorkStreams. The aim is to improve the design potential and usability of TFW processes in future textile-form microfactory contexts.

The research builds on earlier work to define TFW system requirements and constraints, and explores how sustainability-relevant data and digital tools can support the TFW design process. The candidate will contribute to the development and formalisation of TFW design processes, with particular attention to how the material and process temporality of TFW - the temporal unfolding of decisions across design, weaving, and finishing - can be understood and navigated by designers.

This temporality dimension is a novel and distinctive contribution of the PhD. The candidate will provide the design knowledge and process understanding that enables computational partners and robotic fabrication partners to develop technically robust systems that are also designerly and meaningful. The candidate does not build computational or robotic systems, but generates the design knowledge that makes those systems useful.

Your Role:

You will work independently and collaboratively on research tasks including (but not limited to):

• Develop design methodologies and processes for Textile-Form Woven garments and products, with particular attention to the temporal structure of TFW design decision-making
• Develop a digital library of flattened garment archetypes with structured metadata for consortium-wide use.
• Investigate workflows that translate 3D garment design into 2D Jacquard weaving designs, identifying critical decision points where designer input is required
• Contribute design process knowledge to the development of manufacturing modules and digital tools within the project
• Provide design knowledge and process frameworks to support computational design formalisation and robotic moulding and finishing research.
• Conduct user studies with designers to evaluate design methods, processes, and co-developed digital design workflows and tools
• Develop TFW prototypes and samples to support material exploration and user and material experience research
• Collaborate with academic and industry partners within the INTERWeuVEN consortium across Europe
• Disseminate research through four peer-reviewed publications over the course of the PhD, co-authored with supervisors and consortium partners

Job requirements
The candidate must have:

• A Master's degree in fashion design, textile design, industrial design engineering, or a closely related field
• Experience with garment design and pattern cutting, or form design and patterning for soft materials
• Familiarity with relevant digital design tools — such as CLO3D, industrial Jacquard design software (NedGraphics, Scotweave, or equivalent), Rhino/Grasshopper, Blender, or SolidWorks
• Interest in digital design workflows for textile production and an understanding of the relationship between design and fabrication processes
• Strong written and spoken communication skills in English
• The ability to work collaboratively in an interdisciplinary and international research environment across academic and industry partners

The following experience is considered advantageous:

• Familiarity with zero-waste fashion design methods
• Experience working in the fashion or textile industry
• Knowledge of sustainable or circular design strategies, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) or digital product passports
• Knowledge of weave structure and Jacquard design principles
• Experience conducting user studies or familiarity with related evaluation methods
• Experience with physical prototyping and material exploration in woven or soft material contexts

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Industrial Design Engineering
Matching the evolution of people with the speed of the revolution of technology. This is the focus of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). Delft designers act as a bridge between advances in technology and the needs of people, organisations and society to create products, services and systems with purpose.IDE is a leader in design research across the application areas of mobility, sustainability and health, as well as its development of design tools and methods. A 350-strong research team and over 2,000 students work together in our inspiring hall, labs and studios.In close cooperation with industry, the public sector and NGOs we rehearse possible futures in research and education to design for a complex future.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

PhD position Co-creating circular business models and services for e-bikes and home appliances

Job description

The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is hiring a doctoral candidate on the topic of “Co-creating circular business models and product–service systems (PSS) for consumer behavior change”. Despite growing policy attention and the introduction of new legislation such as Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and the Right to Repair Directive, household consumption stays locked in a linear “take–make–dispose” pattern. This PhD project will focus on circularity for two product categories in the Netherlands: e-bikes and washing machines. Behavioral data highlights a problematic reality: 43% of users would replace their e-bike if the motor failed, and 23% if the battery failed. 31% of washing machines are discarded while still working.

As a PhD candidate you will co-create market-ready propositions within new business models and PSS, focusing on circularity strategies and behavior-change elements, that are simultaneously attractive to consumers and viable for firms. Your research is anchored in two case studies: e-bikes as the primary case and white goods as a smaller comparative case. E-bikes offer an analytically rich and underexplored setting (more than 450,000 sold yearly in the Netherlands, motors and batteries often lasting far shorter than overall lifetime expectancy of e-bikes), while white goods provide a contrasting case to test transferability across product categories.

You will address the following research questions:

1. ) How can circular business propositions be co-created to make repair, reuse and refurbish strategies simultaneously attractive for consumers and viable for firms across the value chain?
2. ) Which behavior-change elements are needed to nudge consumers into new PSS business models?
3. ) How can co-designed propositions be piloted and tested in the case of e-bikes (primary case) and white goods (comparative case) – and what cross-sectoral learnings emerge?

During your PhD you will:

• Co-create user-centered opportunity spaces and R-strategy requirements with consumers, translating behavioral insights into personas, user journeys and opportunity spaces.
• Co-create circular propositions with value-chain and societal actors, e.g. repair subscriptions, (like-for-like) refurbished offers, deposit and take-back systems, mapping (legislative) barriers and enablers across the chain.
• Pilot the propositions in real-world settings, focusing first on e-bikes and then on white goods, qualitatively evaluating feasibility, desirability and product life-extension.
  You will be based at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Section Design for Sustainability, supervised by Prof. dr. ir. Ruud Balkenende (promotor), Dr. ir. Sonja van Dam, and Dr. ir. Brian Baldassarre. You will collaborate closely with a parallel candidate at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (working on a complementary decision-framework track on co-existing self-repair and third-party R-strategies) with PhDs and postdocs across the wider CIVIC-4CE project, and directly with consortium partners in co-creation sessions and pilots.

About CIVIC-4CE
This fully funded, 4-year PhD position is part of the NWO KIC funded project CIVIC-4CE (Circular Consumption through Value-Chain Integration and Co-Creation for the Circular Economy), a five-year programme combining behavioral science (WP2), circular PSSs (WP3), immersive technologies (XR/AI) (WP4) transition pathways and agent-based modelling (WP5) to make R-strategies the norm. The consortium unites TU Delft, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Wageningen University, The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, together with a quadruple-helix network of manufacturers and retailers (e.g. Decathlon, ATAG, Van Raam Mobility), designers, repair and reverse-logistics SMEs (e.g. E-ves, Re:first, Jafix), platform and innovation partners, civil-society organisations (Consumentenbond, Fietsersbond), and municipalities.

Job requirements

• Driven, enthusiastic and independent thinker
• MSc degree (or equivalent) in design engineering, business or innovation studies, or a related field
• Experience with participatory research methods, co-creation, or co-design approaches and their application in product–service system development
• Experience in the micromobility sector or affinity with e-bikes is highly beneficial
• Demonstrated interest in sustainability and circular economy
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in transdisciplinary contexts engaging with diverse stakeholders
• Affinity with design for behavior change
• Proficiency in English (written and spoken) is essential; working knowledge of Dutch is a strong advantage, given that fieldwork and pilots will largely take place in the Netherlands.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Industrial Design Engineering
Matching the evolution of people with the speed of the revolution of technology. This is the focus of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). Delft designers act as a bridge between advances in technology and the needs of people, organisations and society to create products, services and systems with purpose.

IDE is a leader in design research across the application areas of mobility, sustainability and health, as well as its development of design tools and methods. A 350-strong research team and over 2,000 students work together in our inspiring hall, labs and studios.

In close cooperation with industry, the public sector and NGOs we rehearse possible futures in research and education to design for a complex future.
Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

PhD Position on Strengthening Mortgage Portfolio Resilience to Physical Climate Risks

Background

Real estate is a key foundation of global wealth and has long been viewed as a safe asset. For most people, buying a home is the largest financial investment of their lifetime. Physical climate risks such as floods, droughts, storms, and wildfires, challenge that assumption. Conventional, backward-looking climate risk assessments capture direct damages but overlook indirect effects such as value depreciation and asset stranding. In a climate-affected future, the value of exposed properties may structurally change, challenging the financial health of both homeowners and the financial sector that holds their mortgages.

Job description
This fully funded 4-year PhD project asks whether, where and when local property damage from physical climate risks systematically harms homeowners (micro level) and could scale up into portfolio-wide mortgage defaults for lenders (macro level). The empirical focus is the Netherlands, with two concrete hazards: flooding and drought-induced foundation damage to homes. Focusing on diverse ‘climate risk owners’, this PhD project will explore how different risk mitigation instruments help reduce inequalities and overall damages.

Methodologically, the project will rely on spatially-explicit computational Agent-Based Models (ABMs) of housing markets, combined with stakeholder workshops and a survey. Leveraging on existing models (like the RHEA ABM, Bank of England ABM), you will design and advance ABMs that combine climate projections (e.g., KNMI, PBL, Klimaateffectatlas) with behavioural and market dynamics, and use them to assess the climate-mortgage-property value nexus. The aim is to trace how shifting perceptions of physical climate risk work their way into property values, and onward into the financial position of homeowners and lenders, and to weigh the strategies that could strengthen resilience on both sides. This modelling is complemented by statistical and econometric data analysis, engagement with relevant stakeholders, and a tailored homeowners survey.

You will be based at TU Delft at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, within the Multi-Actor Systems department, working closely with Prof. Tatiana Filatova and Dr. Theodoros Chatzivasileiadis research group on systemic climate risk in complex adaptive economies. Wider collaboration with the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture, and Delft Climate Action Program is foreseen. You will join a multidisciplinary team spanning computational modelling, behavioural research and climate-risk analysis, and engage directly with stakeholders from the financial sector and public institutions. Positioned at the interface of climate finance and agent-based modelling, your work will have a clear path to real-world impact on how climate risks are priced and managed in mortgage lending.     

Job requirements
A successful candidate will have:

• demonstrable prior experience with agent-based modelling (ABM). This is a core requirement for the position.
• an MSc in Economics, Spatial/Environmental/Financial Economics, Computational Science, Complex Systems, Geography, Engineering & Policy Analysis, or a closely related field.
• strong programming skills in a scientific language (Python, Julia, etc.).
• experience with statistical and/or econometric data analysis.
• the ability to work with spatial data/GIS (an asset).
• domain interest in housing and mortgage markets, climate-risk pricing, financial stability, or coupled social–environmental systems (an advantage).
• willingness to engage with financial-sector and policy stakeholders, and to contribute to survey design.
• solid problem-solving skills and the capacity to take initiative.
• fluent written and spoken English.

For more details, please check the Graduate School admission requirements: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/education/programmes/phd/admission. Dutch is not obligatory; TU Delft offers opportunities to learn the language if desired.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Technology, Policy and Management
The Faculty of TPM provides an important contribution to solving complex technical-social issues, such as energy transition, mobility, digitalisation, water management and (cyber) security. TPM does this with its excellent education and research at the intersection of technology, society and policy. We combine insights from both engineering and social sciences as well as the humanities. TPM develops robust models and designs, is internationally oriented and has an extensive network of knowledge institutions, companies, social organisations and governments.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management.

PhD Position Joint Motion Monitoring Devices for Home Environments

Job description

The Department of Sustainable Design Engineering in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and the department of Biomechanical Engineering, faculty of Mechanical Engineering are seeking a hardworking and motivated PhD candidate to join us for a full-time, fully funded, 4-year project. You will be supervised by prof. K.M.B. Jansen and dr. G. Smit.

The Challenge

Healthcare systems worldwide face a dual and growing challenge: costs are rising while the availability of healthcare professionals is decreasing. At the same time, millions of people with chronic mobility conditions—such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Stroke, and Parkinson’s Disease—struggle to maintain independence in their daily lives. We urgently need new approaches that can bridge the gap between hospital-based care and remote patient management.

These will be developed with the ‘Care is coming home!’ program. This program will be executed the coming 5 years by a large consortium consisting of 2 technical universities (TU Delft, UTwente), 6 hospitals (Amsterdam UMC, Erasmus MC, Leiden UMC, Maartenskliniek, Maastricht UMC, Radboud UMC), 13 companies (Able Human Motion, Biomex, Cue2Walk, DanuSports, Kinetic Analysis, Lode Holding, Madglove, ModelHealth, Moveshelf, Orikami, Sabender (Enterprising Company), Trinoma, VicarVision), 1 rehabilitaion centre (Daan Theeuwes Centrum) and 5 patient organisations (Hersenletsel.nl, Hersenstichting, Parkinson Vereniging, ParkinsonNL, ReumaNederland).

As a PhD candidate in this project, you will contribute to a multi-disciplinary research effort focused on empowering individuals with chronic mobility limitations. You will help design, develop, and evaluate innovative medical technology that enables people to manage their health at home—safely, independently, and with confidence.

More specifically, for this position we aim to develop novel measurement devices for monitoring joint motion in chronically ill patients in home environments, enabling quantitative assessment of disease progression. For rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, you will develop a finger stiffness measurement device to assess finger joint dexterity. To unobtrusively assess changes in joint movement in stroke patients without relying on cameras, you will also develop a drift compensation algorithm for combined IMU and stretch sensor configurations.

As a PhD candidate in this project you will collaborate in particular with Erasmus MC, ReumaNederland and Madglove

Job requirements
Your profile:

• You hold a master’s degree in biomechanics design, biomechanical engineering or equivalent.You have prove skills in prototyping and testing as well as dynamics and programming
• You have affinity with electronics
• You have high-level analytical, and organizational skills
• A strong interest in medical technology
• Affinity with giving education, as you will spent some time on educational tasks
• You are fluent in English, both spoken and written. For working with patients knowledge of Dutch is a pre
• Affinity for working with patients and clinicians.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Industrial Design Engineering
Matching the evolution of people with the speed of the revolution of technology. This is the focus of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). Delft designers act as a bridge between advances in technology and the needs of people, organisations and society to create products, services and systems with purpose.IDE is a leader in design research across the application areas of mobility, sustainability and health, as well as its development of design tools and methods. A 350-strong research team and over 2,000 students work together in our inspiring hall, labs and studios.In close cooperation with industry, the public sector and NGOs we rehearse possible futures in research and education to design for a complex future.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.