Lecturer in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Are you passionate about educating the next generation of data and AI professionals? Do you enjoy combining academic knowledge with practical applications in software, data, and intelligent systems? Then this position at Wageningen University & Research may be the ideal next step in your career.

As Lecturer in Big Data and AI, you will contribute to education and innovation within the Information Technology Group. You will teach and coordinate courses in areas such as big data systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data engineering, and software systems. You will help students develop both theoretical understanding and practical engineering skills that are essential for designing modern intelligent systems.

You will work in an international and interdisciplinary environment where digital technologies are increasingly applied to societal challenges in domains such as food, agriculture, environment, health, and sustainability.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Teaching and coordinating courses in Big Data, AI, and related IT subjects;
• Supervising student projects, theses, and practical assignments;
• Contributing to curriculum development and educational innovation;
• Supporting the integration of AI and data technologies in education;
• Collaborating with colleagues on educational and applied research activities.

Your team
You will work within the Information Technology Group, an international and collaborative team of researchers and educators focusing on AI, data science, and software engineering. The group is part of Wageningen University & Research and contributes to education and research at the intersection of IT and life sciences.

PHD position: measuring the developing immune system in chickens

Are you a highly motivated, curious researcher who is fascinated by fundamental aspects of the immune system in animals and not afraid of a challenge? Are you excited about using a multifaceted approach combining immune assays, animal experiments and quantitative data analysis? Are you enthusiastic about collaboration in a multidisciplinary team? Then you could be the ideal PhD candidate for this position!

You will contribute to the consortium project “I-COMP: Improved immune competence of day-old chicks: a head start”, a collaboration between WUR, the Faculty of Veterinary medicine of the Utrecht University, and two industrial partners (HatchTech, Merck Animal Health. This project, funded by the NWO Open Technology Programme, aims to create and test a system that will evaluate the impact of egg incubation conditions on development of the immune system. With this system we will investigate whether immune development can be enhanced during the late embryonic stage and whether this will improve the health and resistance of chicks against infections.

You will work here
You will be working in the Jansen group, in the chair group Cell Biology & Immunology . The research in the Jansen group focuses on understanding how the cells of the immune system in veterinary species like chickens are activated and exert their function. This includes developing assays and reagents and use these to perform fundamental research on how the chicken immune system develops in young chickens. This basic knowledge can then be applied to design novel strategies to modulate the development of the immune system, with the ultimate aim to improve immune mediated protection and reduce infections in chickens.

You will be directly supervised by Dr. Christine Jansen, and will work in a small team with other PhD students and a technician. This project offers ample opportunities for local and international collaboration, guaranteeing a dynamic working environment.

Admission Officer

Binnen de afdeling Student Affairs & Services (SAS) stroomlijnen we vanuit onze front- en backoffice de processen rondom aanmeldingen, inschrijvingen, visum aanvragen en huisvesting van (aankomende) bachelor-, master- en uitwisselingsstudenten.

In deze functie ben jij samen met jouw collega’s verantwoordelijk voor de diplomawaardering en verificatie van de authenticiteit van diploma’s voor toelating tot een opleiding van de Universiteit Twente. Je begeleidt de student door het gehele aanmeldingstraject en zorgt ervoor dat de student tijdig geïnformeerd wordt over zijn of haar toelaatbaarheid.

Je beslist over de toelaatbaarheid van de aankomende bachelor student en brengt over de aankomende master student advies uit aan de opleidingen. Ook uitwisselingsstudenten begeleid je in het administratieve aanmeld- en registratieproces, zodat zij kunnen starten aan hun uitwisselingsprogramma aan de Universiteit Twente. Je levert een bijdrage aan de uitvoering van het UT-toelatingsbeleid voor (internationale) studenten en je vertaalt de algemene UT-toelatingseisen naar eisen voor studenten met een internationale vooropleiding. Samen met je collega’s ben je verantwoordelijk voor het bijhouden van nationale en internationale ontwikkelingen op het gebied van onderwijssystemen, diplomawaardering en communicatie hierover binnen en buiten de UT. Ook ben je verantwoordelijk voor de ontwikkeling, beschrijving en het onderhoud van de aanmeldprocessen en zorg je ervoor dat jullie werkinstructies actueel zijn. Op verzoek lever je analyses en informatie aan het management aan.

PhD in Advanced in vitro modeling and biomechanical characterization of intravasation

Cancer still is one of the world’s deadliest diseases. Most devastating is the ability of cancer cells to spread throughout the body in a multistep process called metastasis, the major cause for mortality. A critical step is intravasation, when cancer cells pass a blood vessel wall to enter the blood stream, and travel to another location to create a secondary tumor. However, the mechanisms of intravasation are still largely unexplored, even though it is pivotal: if we can prevent it, cancer does not spread. In the ERC-AdG research project “Intrap”, we aim to enhance our understanding of intravasation through a unique experimental approach.

We hypothesize that intravasation is critically controlled by mechanical cues like stiffness, geometry, and adhesive interactions; after all, the act of passing the vessel wall requires mechanical action of the cells: deforming, adhering, detaching, moving, and overcoming mechanical forces. We will take a systematic approach enabling to separately control different mechanical cues, and directly observe their effect on intravasation.

We are developing an innovative microfluidic platform with a multi-chip architecture for in vitro intravasation testing. In the individual chips we create blood vessels with varying geometry and permeability, surrounded by extracellular matrices (ECM) with pre-determined mechanical properties in which different tumor cells or cell clusters with known or controlled mechanical properties are integrated. We will directly observe the intravasation process using live microscopy. Our platform will open new approaches to cancer research; our discoveries will expand our scientific knowledge of metastasis. Beyond Intrap, the obtained insights can contribute to the development of highly needed novel cancer treatments that intervene with mechanical properties of cancer cells, matrix or blood vessels.

We are looking for a PhD candidate to team up with us, focusing on:

• Creating advanced 3D cell cultures in microfluidic chips
• Biophysical engineering of cell and matrix properties through biochemical and RNA treatments
• Live cell microscopy and analysis, including development of live-cell reporters
• Mechanotransduction and mechanobiological analysis

Postdoc ERC Synergy TASTADE - IISH

This two-years postdoctoral position is geared towards participating in and overseeing the first phase of data collection and data organization. The postdoctoral candidate will steer a team of 4-6 junior researchers based in the Netherlands gathering data on investors in the Dutch slave trade and Dutch investors in the slave trade of other nations. The postdoctoral candidate will function in an international team with two other postdoctoral candidates leading similar teams of junior researchers in France and Brazil. Because the postdoctoral candidate is based in Amsterdam where the development of the digital infrastructure of this project takes place, the candidate is also expected, with the four principal investigators, to act as the conduit between the three data gathering teams and the digital designers working on the further development of the database.

The daily tasks of the postdoctoral candidate consist of:

• Adding names and background information of slave trade investors to the database;
• Selecting primary and secondary sources for the junior researchers to gather names and background information about slave trade investors;
• Testing, overseeing and correcting data gathering, data entry and data cleaning;
• Signaling challenges and opportunities for advancing data gathering and reporting on them in joint meetings with the postdoctoral candidates in France and Brazil, as well as the four principal investigators;
• Being the vital link between data gatherers and the digital design team at the KNAW HUC Digital Infrastructure department.