项目介绍

2025年12月24日

Are you enthusiastic about climate research in the Arctic and keen to find out how the rapidly changing permafrost landscapes have developed since the last ice age and how they will respond to ongoing global warming? Then apply for this PhD project.

Your function

We invite applications for a PhD position in the 5-year PeTCaT research project funded by the Schmidt Sciences foundation.

The PeTCaT project “Rapid Permafrost Thaw Carbon Trajectories” aims to quantify the effects of permafrost thawing on the global carbon cycle. Permafrost thaw processes and associated climate feedbacks are not adequately represented in the Earth system models used for future climate projections. A key shortcoming of current models is that they do not account for the so-called rapid thaw processes that frequently occur in the ice-rich permafrost regions of the Arctic.

The goal of this exciting PhD project is to advance the modeling of rapid thawing processes. This includes the development and application of the process-based land surface model CryoGridLite to investigate the dynamics of ground ice and rapid thawing processes (such as thermokarst, thermo-erosion, thaw slumps, or ice-wedge degradation). The aim is to integrate process-based modeling with data-driven approaches (e.g., machine learning, simulation-based inference) using a wide range of geospatial data. The modeling framework will be applied to retrace the evolution of pan-Arctic permafrost and ground ice over the last millennia and to improve projections of future thaw trajectories relevant to permafrost carbon emissions and climate feedbacks.

The work will be conducted in close cooperation with the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, and further international project partners in Germany, Sweden, Canada, and the USA. As part of the PhD project, it will be possible to join field work campaigns in the permafrost regions of Canada and/or Alaska.

Your duties

As a PhD student, your tasks will include the following:

• Design and execute your own research plans
• Present your research on scientific conferences and publish your results in scientific journals
• Advance and apply the CryoGridLite land surface model
• Contributing to teaching and supervising bachelor and master students
• Collaborate with project partners from similar and different fields

Your profile

We seek a highly motivated student to pursue research Arctic permafrost thaw dynamics with the following profile:

• A MSc degree in physical geography, (geo)physics, hydrology, earth science, (geo)data science, geoecology, environmental science or equivalent
• Affinity to and preferably experience in numerical modelling and/or geodata analyses
• Experience with programming languages such as Python, Julia, or MATLAB
• Able to work independently, but also within the interdisciplinary project team
• Excellent writing and verbal communication skills in English

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognizing that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

We realize that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognizes themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially engaged organization. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 3.059,00 (PhD) and maximum € 3.881,00 (PhD) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile PhD candidate. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• a position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year. Afterwards, the intention is to extent the position for another 3-years enveloping the full PhD. 4 years of funding is secured.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• contribution to commuting expenses
• hybrid working enables a good work-life balance