Interdisciplinary PhD position Young Academy Groningen 2025

We are looking for talented students who wish to design their own PhD research project on an interdisciplinary topic within the scope of the research expertise of Young Academy Groningen members (please visit www.rug.nl/research/young-academy). Two PhD positions are available to conduct research within the themes of the projects. Project 1 is listed below and project 2 will be advertised later. As a PhD student, you will develop your own research project in consultation with the associated supervisor(s). You will conduct independent and original academic research and report results via peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ultimately a PhD thesis. The PhD thesis has to be completed within four years. Being part of a cutting-edge research programme, you will receive research training as well as a varied educational training program including transferable skills and future (academic or non-academic) career training for after the PhD trajectory, in the context of our Career Perspective Series.

Project 1. Project title: What you see is what you get: harnessing animal eye design to develop new vision systems

Supervisors:
Dr Casper J. van der Kooi (Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biophysics)
Prof Dr Marcos Guimaraes (Associate Professor in Optospintronics)

Project description:
How do insects see the world? And what can we learn from animal eyes to develop new sensors, such as smoke detectors, minute surgical cameras or autonomous vehicles? The animal kingdom offers a bewildering diversity of eye types, many of which see the world entirely different from humans: from bee and butterfly eyes that see ultraviolet, to beetle eyes that see near-infrared or the enormous camera-type eyes of deep-sea squid. This project charts two key aspects of animal vision – spatial resolution (visual sharpness) and colour sensitivity. It uses the acquired knowledge on insect eye design to establish the core principles of how multi-aperture vision systems are optimised to different visual tasks and environments.

The candidate will measure the visual fields of a diverse group of insects with the aim to establish how insect eyes are adapted to different environments/conditions. Using a combination of optical, microscopy, image processing, mathematical modelling and ecological comparative methods, we will perform a large-scale comparative study on insect eyes. The candidate will deploy our recently developed Goniometric Research Apparatus for Compound Eyes (GRACE, Munos-Arias et al. 2022 https://research.rug.nl/files/212424515/document_22_.pdf) for comparative studies on different insect groups.

Interdisciplinary focus:

This project links
- Disciplines: comparative biology, optics and biophysics.
- Theory: optical theory provides us with specific predictions as to what eye designs would work best for specific visual tasks. Biological theory provides predictions about energy efficiency and behaviour.
- Fundamental and applied research. We will establish the fundamental characteristics of vision for different types of tasks and environments, which will help design new artificial, multi-aperture camera types.

The ideal candidate

- Has an MSc degree in Biology, Life Science and Technology, Physics or a related field.
- Is willing to develop skills in other disciplines.
- Has clear interest in sensory systems.
- Does not shy away from programming and coding.
- Is willing to work with insects and possibly fieldwork (locally and abroad).
- Has a good command of English.

As an employee PhD candidate, you fall under the Collective Labor Agreement of Dutch Universities. A separate salary scale with four steps applies to PhD candidates: P0 to P3. The current level of the corresponding salary and more information about the collective employment conditions can be found on the VSNU Cao Dutch Universities external link page. The 2022-2023 CLA version is accessible via this link: http://www.labouragreementuniversities.nl/

The appointment will commence medio 2025, in consultation with the candidate.

Interviews with selected candidates will be held online on 26 March 2025.

You may apply for this position until 14 March 11:59pm / before 15 March 2025 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

The application package consists of the following separate documents:

1. brief letter of motivation (max. 1 page).
2. a CV, including contact details of two academic referees.
4. a scan of your diploma including transcripts.

The documents 1-3 are compulsory and please note that incomplete application packages or applications sent by email will not be taken into account. If necessary – because of the limited upload options, please combine different documents into one pdf.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/(...)rsity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

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