Background The physical and social environments we live in have significant impacts on our health. They contribute to about 70% of the world’s chronic disease burden. Since many aspects of our environment are modifiable, this provides a huge potential for disease prevention. Leading scientists in Europe and the USA have formalized this perspective as the Exposome concept. The Exposome comprises aspects of the built environment, the social environment, the physicochemical environment, and people’s lifestyle. 
To study the Exposome, we need to examine both the multitude of interrelated individual exposures, the wider behavioral and social context in which these exposures occur, and their impact inside the human body. The external Exposome encompasses the context in which humans spend time, move through, and in which behaviors take place and, eventually, which impacts human health. Uncovering individuals’ Exposome will thus require capturing the dynamics of environmental exposures at the individual level along people’s daily movement over long periods of time. This will require a combination of several advanced geospatial technologies, such as GPS tracking, mobile sensors, and geospatial big data. Through deploying advanced geospatial methods and data, this part of the Exposome NL project focuses on measuring the general external Exposome by developing and validating methods not only for obtaining detailed data about environmental factors like pollutants and psychosocial stressors but also for assessing their health impacts while addressing significant methodological issues.

Job description
To address the need to correctly integrate the environmental context in space-time for health impact assessments, this part of the Exposome NL project aims to develop theories and methods to assess people’s daily and life-long exposures more accurately. The major research tasks include:

1. Development of methods for delineating contextual units that more accurately capture the individual external Exposome. To assess the effectiveness of these methods, a GPS dataset will be collected in the panel study serving as a benchmark and for comparing results obtained from the cohort and panel data. Specific tasks include:
   1. to compare the geographic extents of different contextual units (including their sizes and time-weighted sizes), and
   2. to compare the effects of using different contextual units on the levels of the external Exposome and its health effects.
2. Development of a toolkit of algorithms to accurately measure and assess the external Exposome and relating it to health outcomes. This part of the project will develop a suite of geocomputational and geovisualization methods for:
   1. analyzing and visualizing complex and high-resolution space-time data of individual movement and air pollution concentrations,
   2. delineating different contextual areas, deriving contextual variables, and comparing the effects of using different contextual units on the levels of exposure to air pollution and its health effects,
   3. incorporating the scaling-up metrics and methods developed in the study for wide dissemination.
3. Examination of the relationships between the general external Exposome and various health outcomes and diseases, including cardiometabolic and food-related health outcomes.
4. Another important task is to help the main group to develop data collection instruments and survey questions and help to link this part of the Exposome NL project with the other parts of the project. 

We are looking for a passionate candidate with a strong motivation to pursue a PhD-degree, who:

• has a degree in health science, geographic information science, geography, or related disciplines by the time of appointment;
• has proven interest in and enthusiasm about the outlined research topics and methods;
• is well versed in quantitative data analytics (e.g., in R) and geographic information systems;
• has good knowledge in conducting a survey and is familiar collecting GPS data;
• is proficient in both spoken and written English and have excellent communication skills.

You will be offered a full-time PhD position, initially for one year with extension to four years in total upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period. The gross salary starts with €2,395 per month in the first year and increases to €3,061 per month in the fourth year of employment (scale P according to the Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities) for a full-time employment.  
Besides that, you will receive a holiday allowance of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. Utrecht University also has an appealing package of terms of employment, including the choice for a good balance between work and private (a good arrangement for leave, among other things), possibilities for development and an excellent pension scheme. More information on working at Utrecht University can be found here

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major societal themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Sustainability.

Utrecht University's Faculty of Geosciences studies the Earth: from the Earth's core to its surface, including man's spatial and material utilisation of the Earth - always with a focus on sustainability and innovation. With 3,400 students (BSc and MSc) and 720 staff, the Faculty is a strong and challenging organisation. The Faculty of Geosciences is organised in four Departments: Earth Sciences, Human Geography & Spatial Planning, Physical Geography, and Sustainable Development.

The Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning has its focus on the enhancement of long-term economic developments of cities, how to cope with social inequalities, and how to accelerate sustainability transitions of cities and infrastructures. Research on these topics takes place within our research program “Urban Futures: Transitions Towards Economic and Social Sustainability for Cities”.

Our research programme is the basis for our Research Master's Human Geography and Geographical Information Management and Applications and Professional Master's in Spatial Planning, Human Geography and International Development Studies. The Department also runs a large and highly appreciated Bachelor's programme and is part of the Netherlands Graduate School of Urban and Regional Research for PhD candidates. Unique characteristics of the Department are a special team focusing on innovations within teaching methods, its strong involvement in the transdisciplinary sustainability research theme and professional consultancy for public partners.