Plastic items larger than a few centimeters (macroplastics) are a clear visible testament of the pollution in the ocean. These macroplastics have an impact on marine organisms and even more so when they fragment into microplastics. However, the amount of macroplastic can vary by orders of magnitude per day and per kilometer. In a large project funded by an NWO Vici grant, our team will develop a new numerical tool to understand this variation and predict the amount of macroplastic on Northwest European seas and coasts. Such a tool could be used to optimize beach clean-ups and thereby prevent these macroplastics from fragmenting into larger numbers of microplastics.

We are looking for a PhD candidate to support this project. You will measure the transport of macroplastic between coast and ocean with a dedicated process-based observational field campaign. In this field campaign, we will build 1000 custom-built GPS-tracked drifters and deploy them at strategic locations throughout the North Sea to unravel the physical oceanographic processes that drive the accumulation of macroplastic items, and to quantify beaching probability when macroplastic is in the coastal zone.

During the project, you will be involved in:

• developing a novel GPS-tracked drifter, based on open hardware design principles and with consideration of its environmental burden;
• testing the design of the drifters and building up to 1000 copies of it;
• deploying the drifters in the North Sea over a period of a few months;
• analysing the trajectories of the drifters;
• mapping the emergence of hotspots on shorelines around the Northwest European Shelf and comparing these to observed time series of beach litter;
• collaborating with partners at Stichting De Noordzee to develop a Citizen Science campaign to help find and collect the beached drifters;
• working within a large, interdisciplinary project.

For the drifter development, testing and building phases, you will be supported by the instrumentation group at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research at Utrecht University, who have extensive experience with geophysical instrumentation development.

At the end of the project, you will have:

• a deep understanding of the physical oceanographic processes that control the beaching and resuspension of macroplastic items;
• expertise in design-cycle for state-of-the-art geophysical instrumentation;
• developed skills to support Citizen Science experiments;
• had the opportunity to set your own research questions and goals;
• further advanced your skills in data analysis in python;
• enhanced your skills to communicate your scientific results to a wide audience including peers, media, and the general public.

Our ideal candidate has a driven and collaborative spirit and has multiple of the following:

• an MSc in engineering, physics, earth sciences, or similar field;
• experience with hardware design, sensor design, the maker movement and/or tinkering;
• strong skills in python programming;
• strong skills in advanced data science;
• motivated to cooperate within a dynamic, diverse, multidisciplinary research team;
• excellent level of written and spoken English;
• Preferably a proven affinity with physical oceanography.

• A position for 4 years;
• a full-time gross salary ranging from € 2,541,- to € 3,247 in scale P;
• 8% holiday bonus and 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave, and flexible employment conditions based on the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities;
• embedding in and learning from a great team of multi-disciplinary oceanographers.

In addition to the employment conditions from the CAO for Dutch Universities, Utrecht University has several own arrangements. These include agreements on professional development, leave arrangements and sports. We also give you the opportunity to expand your terms of employment through the Employment Conditions Selection Model. This is how we encourage you to grow.

For more information, please visit working at the Faculty of Science. 

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You will work at the Institute of Marine and Atmospheric research at the Department of Physics of Utrecht University, and then specifically within the Lagrangian Ocean Analysis group. This group, led by Prof. dr. Erik van Sebille, develops the OceanParcels.org framework and creates and analyses simulations of the transport of material (plastics, plankton, fish) by ocean currents and its impact on climate and marine ecosystems. Within the group, we adhere to Open Science principles and aim to create a collaborative and inclusive atmosphere.