PhD Position Effect of Tramp Elements in Martensitic Stainless Steels

Job description
As the steel industry moves towards a more sustainable future, increasing the use of recycled scrap is becoming essential. However, recycled steel often contains residual alloying elements that are difficult to remove and are carried over into newly produced steels. These so-called “tramp elements” or impurities can significantly affect steel quality, causing issues ranging from surface cracking during processing to the formation of undesirable phases in the final microstructure.

This challenge is particularly relevant for martensitic stainless steels, a technologically important class of materials whose outstanding properties depend on a carefully controlled microstructure. Understanding how impurity elements influence these steels is therefore critical for enabling a circular and resource-efficient steel industry.

In this PhD project, you will investigate which impurity elements are most critical for martensitic stainless steels, where they originate from, and how they accumulate throughout recycling loops. Combining advanced characterization, materials science, and metallurgical insight, you will explore how these elements affect microstructure evolution, processing behaviour, and ultimately material performance. Where possible, strategies to mitigate their negative effects will also be examined.

The project offers an exciting opportunity to address a fundamental scientific challenge with direct industrial relevance. By improving our understanding of impurities in recycled steels, you will contribute to the development of more sustainable steel production routes while helping to unlock higher recycled content without compromising quality or performance.

We are looking for an ambitious PhD-researcher to join this project. As a PhD-researcher, you will work in a stimulating academic environment and collaborate with leading industrial partners. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to the academic community through discussions, the co-supervision of students, and guest lectures.

Job requirements
We seek an outstanding, motivated and enthusiastic researcher with experience in microstructure development in metals and physical metallurgy. Applicant must:

• hold an MSc-degree in the field of materials science or related disciplines, such as solid-state physics or materials engineering, with a solid background in metal science.
• have experience with microstructural characterization.
• have a critical, curious, and creative approach to the research, with excellent problem-solving skills and communication skills.
• have proven experience in writing scientific reports.
• have the motivation to work in an international, multidisciplinary, and academic-industrial team.
• be willing to participate in educational activities such as guest lectures.
• have proven excellent written and spoken English skills.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Working at TU Delft means contributing to solutions that really make a difference.

For over 180 years, we have been training engineers who make an impact worldwide in companies, government bodies, or as entrepreneurs. Our alumni turn knowledge into concrete solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow.

These challenges are changing rapidly. That is why we focus on themes such as energy, climate, digitalisation, artificial intelligence (AI), and smart mobility every day. Our education and research are directly aligned with what society needs now and in the future.

At TU Delft, our people make the difference. With their knowledge and curiosity, our staff provide a high-quality education and conduct pioneering research that extends beyond the campus. You will have the opportunity to take the initiative, work with others, and grow as a professional.

Working at TU Delft means join an international community of professionals and students. Together, we create knowledge, innovations, and solutions that help move the world forward.

Faculty Mechanical Engineering
From chip to ship. From machine to human being. From idea to solution. Driven by a deep-rooted desire to understand our environment and discover its underlying mechanisms, research and education at the ME faculty focusses on fundamental understanding, design, production including application and product improvement, materials, processes and (mechanical) systems.

ME is a dynamic and innovative faculty with high-tech lab facilities and international reach. It’s a large faculty but also versatile, so we can often make unique connections by combining different disciplines. This is reflected in ME’s outstanding, state-of-the-art education, which trains students to become responsible and socially engaged engineers and scientists. We translate our knowledge and insights into solutions to societal issues, contributing to a sustainable society and to the development of prosperity and well-being. That is what unites us in pioneering research, inspiring education and (inter)national cooperation.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Do you want to experience working at our faculty? These videos will introduce you to some of our researchers and their work.

PhD Position: De-escalation

Aggression in residential treatment settings remains a significant challenge for care professionals. An aggressive incident involving a client is not solely determined by what occurs in the moment but should be understood as the outcome of a complex interplay of factors. In this regard, characteristics of care professionals play an important role in these interacting processes, including psychophysiological indicators of wellbeing, such as insufficient sleep, cumulative stress and limited recovery, as well as previous experiences with incidents and the broader team, managerial and ward contexts.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the use of wearable technologies, such as smartwatches and biosensors that continuously measure psychophysiological signals, to better capture these dynamic processes. Such technologies may offer new opportunities to gain insight into the interaction between psychophysiological states and behaviour, and could potentially contribute to de-escalation efforts, the prevention of incidents and the reduction of coercive measures. At the same time, the use of wearables in residential and other high-risk care settings raises important ethical and practical questions.

The main question of this PhD-project is how psychophysiological states and stress responses influence staff wellbeing and behaviour, escalation/de-escalation, and the possible use of coercive measures. Before interacting with clients, staff may differ in their physiological starting point due to sleep problems, recovery, chronic stress or earlier experiences during a shift. During escalation, these states may affect perception, self-regulation, and behavioural responses towards clients. After incidents, recovery patterns and stress accumulation may shape future functioning and future interactions. The project pays particular attention to how psychophysiological vulnerability – or psychophysiological resilience – prior to an incident may shape the likelihood of escalation, the use of coercive practices and the quality of relational care.

This PhD project is part of the larger consortium project 'De-escalating Aggressive Encounters between Frontline Workers and Citizens' and is embedded in Work package 2 (WP2), which investigates frontline workers' psyfofysiology and subjective experience. The present PhD project focuses primarily on staff members in residential treatment clinics for young people and adults with and without mild intellectual disabilities and provides the in-depth health care and forensic perspective within a cross-sector design that also covers law enforcement, public transport and retail. The mechanisms which are investigated (vulnerability, motives for aggression, coercion and ethics of monitoring) are examined in depth within residential care and, where relevant, compared across sectors, feeding the project's cross-sector synthesis and perspective on increasing stress before, during, and after aggressive interactions between staff and clients. The consortium brings together expertise from criminology, clinical and forensic psychology, sociology, behavioural science, ethics and data science, and combines video-based research, psychophysiology, qualitative methods and intervention development.

Within WP2, four complementary PhD projects share one dataset while each takes a distinct lens. The project’s distinctive contribution is the in-depth psychophysiological and ethical perspective on care staff: physiological vulnerability and resilience (sleep, recovery, cumulative stress), coercion and the responsible use of monitoring in high-risk care. Your measurements will be collected using the shared WP2 protocol and codebook and linked to behaviourally coded video (WP1) and to workers’ subjective experience, so that a dedicated integration project can later combine the modalities.

The project may include a combination of wearable measurements, incident-related assessments, qualitative interviews or focus groups, and practice-based ethical analysis. A key aim is to understand to what extend wearable-based monitoring can support timely reflection, better allocation of support staff and improved decision-making around high-risk interactions. There is room for both quantitative and qualitative work. Optional attention may be given to team- or ward-level processes, such as shared stress patterns or team synchrony, where feasible and relevant.

The ethical component of the PhD project is not intended as a purely theoretical exercise, but as a practical ethics line closely connected to real dilemmas in clinical settings. This may involve the development of one or more ethical case studies, supported by qualitative interviews or focus groups with staff, team leaders and other stakeholders. Topics may include voluntariness, privacy, data sharing, professional autonomy, managerial use of physiological information and the relational implications of monitoring in care settings. Because these questions arise wherever wearables and video are used across the project, this line also contributes to a shared framework for responsible use for WP2 as a whole. The goal is not only to identify ethical concerns, but also to contribute to a grounded framework for responsible implementation.

Key questions for you to work on include:

• How do sleep, stress and physiological recovery in the context of an aggressive incident influence staff wellbeing and behaviour?
• What psychophysiological patterns are associated with de-escalating and escalating staff responses?
• What happens to staff after aggressive incidents in terms of recovery, stress accumulation and future functioning?
• Can wearable-based monitoring contribute to better timing, support and reflection around situations involving imminent coercion?
• Under what conditions might wearable technology contribute to the reduction of coercion, and when might it create new ethical concerns?
• What practical ethical dilemmas arise when physiological data are used in clinical teams or on wards?
• Which of these mechanisms are specific to residential care, and which are shared with other frontline sectors?

You will work closely with the other consortium partners and treatment organisations and will be expected to visit Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam approximately once a month. This PhD project offers the opportunity to work at the intersection of psychophysiology, staff support, team functioning, coercion reduction, and responsible innovation in clinical practice. You will design and conduct empirical studies in close collaboration with treatment organisations.

This PhD position, carries a 10% teaching load and gives you the opportunity to make a start with/work on your teaching portfolio for the University Teaching Qualification.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate.

Casemanager Dementie

Als Casemanager Dementie begeleid je mensen met dementie en hun naasten vanaf de diagnose en gedurende het hele ziekteproces. Je bent hun vaste aanspreekpunt, brengt de zorgvraag in kaart en voert de regie over de ondersteuning. Dankzij jouw kennis, betrokkenheid en coördinatie zorg je ervoor dat cliënten zo lang mogelijk op een prettige en veilige manier thuis kunnen blijven wonen.

Je komt te werken in een betrokken team waarin samenwerking, kennis delen en ontwikkeling centraal staan. Je werkt zelfstandig, maar hebt altijd collega's om mee te sparren. Geen dag is hetzelfde: je bezoekt cliënten thuis, overlegt met verschillende zorgprofessionals en begeleidt mantelzorgers.

Wat zijn jouw taken?

• Je brengt de zorgvraag van cliënten in kaart en begeleidt hen en hun naasten vanaf de diagnose en gedurende het ziekteproces;
• Je stelt zorgplannen op, evalueert deze en zorgt dat de ondersteuning blijft aansluiten bij de situatie van de cliënt;
• Je voert de regie over de zorgverlening en stemt af met huisartsen, specialisten, wijkverpleegkundigen, gemeenten en andere betrokken zorgprofessionals;
• Je signaleert veranderingen, voorkomt waar mogelijk crisissituaties en onderneemt tijdig actie;
• Je ondersteunt mantelzorgers en geeft voorlichting en advies over dementie, passende zorg en voorzieningen;
• Je helpt cliënten bij het aanvragen of aanpassen van indicaties en verwijst waar nodig door naar passende ondersteuning;
• Je zorgt voor een zorgvuldige rapportage en draagt bij aan de kwaliteit en ontwikkeling van de dementiezorg.

In deze functie kom je te werken in diverse wijken in Alphen aan den Rijn en zijn jouw werktijden overdag op reguliere werkdagen.

Student Verpleegkunde of Geneeskunde

Jij gaat als (kersverse) student verpleegkunde of geneeskunde bij ons veel ervaring opdoen en je in sneltreinvaart ontwikkelen!
Je begint met een compacte training die je samen met andere studenten gaat volgen. Vervolgens ga je met een ervaren collega de wijk in om onze cliënten de zorg te bieden die zij nodig hebben. Je leert alles stap voor stap en doet zo veel praktijkervaring op.

Als je alles goed onder de knie hebt, ga je lekker zelfstandig aan de slag. Op onze ActiFiets e-bike ga je van huis naar huis. Je bouwt een band op met je cliënten en zult ontdekken dat jij in de wijk echt je hart kunt ophalen.

De eerste weken gaan we je trainen en begeleiden in de regio Leiderdorp. Ben je lekker ingewerkt en wil je liever in een andere plaats werken? Meestal kan dat prima.

Verpleegkundige | Verpleeghuis | Rietveld

Als verpleegkundige bij Rietveld werk je op een warme en betrokken locatie in Alphen aan den Rijn, waar bewoners met dementie wonen. Je werkt in een omgeving waar aandacht, rust en nabijheid centraal staan.

Je biedt verpleegkundige zorg, voert verpleegtechnische handelingen uit en signaleert veranderingen in gezondheid of gedrag. Omdat bewoners niet altijd goed kunnen aangeven wat er speelt, is jouw observatievermogen extra belangrijk.

Daarnaast schakel je met artsen, behandelaren, familie en collega’s en denk je mee over passende zorg voor de bewoners. Ook ondersteun je collega’s in het team wanneer er complexe zorgvragen zijn.

Je werkt verschillende diensten, zoals dag-, avond- en weekenddiensten. Zo leer je bewoners op verschillende momenten kennen en draag je bij aan een veilige, vertrouwde en prettige woonomgeving.