27 Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Copenhagen, Denmark

The postdoctoral fellowship is part of the research project Radical Pietism in Northern Europe: Social Protest on the Verge of Modernity, 1690-1750, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and headed by Associate Professor Juliane Engelhardt. A description of the overall aim of the project can be read here: saxoinstitute.ku.dk/research/history/radical-pietism-in-northern-europe/.

The postdoctoral fellow will be responsible for a sub-project that focuses how radical Pietists translated their conversion into distinct vestimentary, corporal, and emotional styles. The postdoctoral fellow will thus analyze radical Pietist practices in their context exploring alternative ways of achieving influence in the public sphere among people who possessed neither formal power, nor strong bookish training.

Applicants from all relevant fields of research, such as cultural history, sociology, history of ideas, art history and religious history, are encouraged to apply.

The postdoc will contribute to the ERC-funded project “Women in the Nordic Enlightenment (WHENCE). Changing the narratives of early modern philosophy and uncovering women’s contribution to Scandinavian gender equality” led by PI Sabrina Ebbersmeyer. The core of this project is to bring to light and critically assess women’s intellectual contribution to the Nordic Enlightenment by examining a text corpus consisting of unpublished material and published texts written by more than a hundred women in Scandinavia. The guiding hypothesis is that the Nordic way of women’s Enlightenment significantly differs from developments prevalent in other regions of Europe, and that women played a decisive role in creating a sustainable identification of the Nordic countries with gender equality.

The expert on the “scholarly sphere and intellectual equality” will investigate writings reflecting on women’s intellectual capacities (including reason, talent, and understanding) and defending women’s intellectual equality. The expert will also explore the development of various arguments, the philosophical traditions on which these arguments rely, and the argumentative strategies women used to counter traditional views about women’s intellectual deficiency.

A position is available for investigating the crosstalk between epicardial fat and cardiomyocyte function. Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is in direct contact with the heart, with increased volume being linked to cardiovascular disease. Specifically, crosstalk between EAT-derived signalling molecules and the heart has shown the induction of inflammation, extracellular matrix remodelling and cardiac conduction abnormalities. Your tasks will be to utilize different omics technologies to characterize epicardial adipose tissue and to map peptides secreted from epicardial adipocytes differentiated from progenitor cells isolated from human epicardial fat. Candidate peptides will be examined for their effects on human cardiomyocytes. Professor Alicia Lundby is co-PI on the project and with her expertise within molecular cardiology and proteomics analyses, we anticipate a strong synergy between our two groups.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have laid the framework for understanding the impact of genetic variation on complex disease risk, predominantly identifying common variants with small effects. Studying isolated populations has the power to enhance the discovery of disease associated loci, due to the enrichment of certain rare variants with large effects. Circulating proteins provide deep insights into the current state of human health and can capture the influence of environment on disease pathogenesis. The Postdoc will work on a project, which will integrate high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS)-based plasma proteomics data with electronic health registry data, along with genetic information from 4,180 Greenlandic individuals to drive the discovery of novel clinical biomarkers and therapeutic targets which may aid in the future prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).

The mentorship team consists of three host laboratories at CBMR. The Hansen lab who has extensive experience in genetic analysis, including identification of pQTL’s, the Deshmukh lab who have core expertise in MS-based proteomic studies, and the Kilpeläinen lab who offer insight into the functional interpretation of human genetic associations. In addition, there will be collaboration with the Albrechtsen Group and Moltke Group at Department of Biology on statistical and computational method, and with Steno Diabetes Center Greenland on Population studies in Greenland.

The proposition underlying the project is that discussions about interdisciplinary communication have been overly focused on technical accuracy and conceptual translation – on the cognitive level. There has been less focus on the communication of disciplinary values and goals – on the affective and motivational levels. We suggest the latter is a key element of interdisciplinary collaboration and requires an ability to tolerate difference: collaborators’ disciplinary values and goals may never be perfectly aligned, but by being made explicit they can be combined in pragmatic and even creative ways (Monteiro & Keating, 2009). The project won’t aim to argue against the search for ‘common language’, but to suggest critical reflection on what needs to be ‘in common’. Developing common concepts can be crucial but aiming to understand each other perfectly can be a barrier to collaboration, and finding a common language for talking about differing values is just as important (Bracken & Oughton, 2006). Neither do we argue for saying everything – sometimes values need to be left (at least temporarily) unspoken (Fitzgerald et al., 2014; Mellor & Webster, 2020). Analysis of what needs to be shared or ‘in common’ will be informed by literature such as Star & Griesemer’s (1989) classic concept of ‘boundary objects’ – shared concepts ambiguous enough that different disciplines can maintain different definitions while still feeling – facilitating “cooperation without consensus” (Star, 2005).

The aim of the postdoc project is to develop patient level multi-modal foundation models for studying cardiometabolic disease. Using data from large international biobanks, such as UKB, All of Us and Project 10K, you will take part in developing and training state of the art deep learning-based foundation models. These will be based on two existing frameworks in our group, EIR (Sigurdsson et al., 2023, NAR) and MOVE (Allesøe et al., 2023, Nature Biotechnology). This includes methodologies such as neural networks, variational autoencoders, transformers and more. Besides modelling your tasks will also include interpretation of the results and dissemination through presentations and preparation of manuscripts. You will join our team aiming to improve precision health through training DL models on biobank scale molecular and health data.

We seek a Postdoctoral Fellow (PDF) in the field of earth system modelling for an 18-month appointment, starting 1 January 2025.

The candidate should have experience in using the NCAR Community Earth System Model or a similar class of Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) models. The central goal of the project is to investigate simulated multiple equilibria of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) under modern climate conditions. In addition to this, future transient CO2 simulations will be investigated under the same ocean model configurations used to simulate the modern climate, in order to assess the potential for future tipping points. The work will be supervised by Professors Guido Vetoretti and Markus Jochum.

The PDFs duties will primarily include research, including obligations with regard to publication/scientific communication. Pedagogical training is also available with the position. The post may also include performance of other duties.

We are seeking highly motivated, skilled candidates with a strong background in molecular biology and single cell- and/or spatial transcriptomics. Understanding of cancer biology, and in particular, the tumor microenvironment, is expected, and experience with CRISPR screens is an advantage. Candidates must be able to perform as part of a team as well as independently, and must have good social skills and communication skills in English. The postdoc’s duties will include research as well as teaching and supervison of Master’s and PhD students.

The successful applicants will become part of the project entitled, GREENWATCH – Green Surveillance: Imagining a Sustainable Internet of Things, funded through a European Research Council Advanced Grant, 2025-2029. The project examines the potentials and challenges of employing the Internet of Things (IoT) as a communication system monitoring the effects of human activities of Earth’s ecosystems, which further entails surveillance of human individuals and social institutions. The positions represent a unique opportunity to participate in interdisciplinary and culturally comparative work covering China, Europe, and the United States, and to contribute to theory development on a strategic issue with global ramifications.

We are looking for a highly motivated and dynamic postdoc with expertise in chromatin biology to develop new epigenetic approaches for cancer treatment. This is a 3-year position with start 15 November 2024, or after agreement.

The successful candidate will work at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (CPR) in the Chromatin Replication and Epigenome Maintenance research group headed by Prof. Anja Groth.

We open up two new postdoc positions in the field of exolife sciences, with the aim of deepening our understanding of what life is, how it interacts with the surrounding atmosphere of habitable exoplanets and how it can be remotely characterized from spectral modelling and observations. Applicants with knowledge and interest in atmospheric modelling, non-equilibrium chemistry, and basic biological processes, will be preferred.  The successful applicants will be part of the astrophysics and planetary sciences section at the Niels Bohr Institute and the research will be carried out in close collaboration with the neighbouring institute of microbiology and the cosmochemistry group at the museum of natural history, all at University of Copenhagen.

We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow for a project focused on developing BrainSTEM, a web application that functions as a structured electronic lab notebook for describing neurophysiological experiments, as well as a collaboration and data-sharing platform for the community. The research will take place at the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen in the lab of Dr. Peter C. Petersen (PetersenLab.org). You will be part of a diverse, interdisciplinary team of neuroscientists, and work with software developers and data scientists to push the boundaries of neuroscience research.

The postdoctoral position is part of the research project “Urban encroachment – untangling drivers and dynamics of land-use transitions in ecologically sensitive areas” funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The overarching aim of this project is to identify and promote more sustainable trajectories of urban expansion in African cities, allowing cities to accommodate rapidly growing populations, while preserving ecologically sensitive areas, benefiting from ecosystem services and building resilience to climate change. The research will entail a comparative case study of two rapidly growing cities – Accra in Ghana and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania – which are characterized by extensive informal expansion

The Skin Health project explores current skin health practices between everyday life, medical knowledge, industrial interests and aesthetic norms. The skin is our largest organ, a key player in health, and a vital part of our cultural, social, and political fabric. A damaged or ill skin can produce serious social stigma and personal trauma and activate mechanisms of exclusion. Engaging with these issues, the project’s overall aim is to advance a more nuanced understanding of skin health focusing on the crucial relations between scientific, commercial and everyday skin practices. Skin health and skin care practices will be investigated by means of historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, and explore the prevailing discourses, medical, technological and everyday practices that define our cultural understanding and engagement with skin health.

The postdoctoral project is specifically expected to contribute to the Skin Health project by ethnographically and historically investigating the knowledge production of skin i.e., how scientific understandings of skin construct the way we think and practice skin. Inspired by current debates and activism on ‘decolonizing dermatology’ the project sets out to investigate the medical history of dermatology, where categories such as gender, race, class and morality have shaped not only the medical but also popular understandings of skin. Furthermore, by applying a future-oriented approach the project will investigate the current intensified scientific interest in artificial skin (robotics and skin grown in laboratories) and skin microbiome habitats (the skin as a living landscape).

Berkeley Quantum Devices Group (quantumdevices.berkeley.edu) and NQCP/Quantum Foundry are collaborating on advancing spin-photon interfaces in silicon photonics for scalable networking of quantum devices. This position is for a postdoctoral researcher who will perform work at Berkeley on advancing spin and optical coherence of color centers in silicon photonic devices.

We are looking for a highly motivated postdoc for a 2 year position to commence 1 November 2024 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The project is part of a larger cross institutional synergy project called ‘GPCRmec: Quantitative investigation of GPCR mechanosensation’ financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

We are seeking an enthusiastic and outstanding post-doctoral candidate with a strong interest in environmental and climate change law and EU Law. The ideal candidate must hold a relevant academic degree (in law or in another social science discipline, provided the applicant can also document sufficient knowledge in law), and possess the appropriate theoretical and methodological tools to carry out the research. Crucially, the successful candidate will have the ability to work in a collaborative international environment both independently and as part of the team.

The postdoc will be part the larger research team at CLIMA, which carries out work on climate change and sustainability. The center offers a nurturing, lively and expanding research environment that has developed frameworks that enable researchers to receive feedback on their ongoing work and interact with other researchers in their field.

Applicants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the faculty’s research areas by visiting the faculty’s website: www.jura.ku.dk.

The Pioneer Centre for Statistical and computational Methods for Advanced Research to Transform Biomedicine (SMARTBiomed) will support a critical mass of researchers who focus on method and software development for analysis and inference from massive human data, advancing applications in medicine. The Pioneer Centre for SMARTBiomed will leverage large-scale, multimodal biomedical data combined with focussed innovation in statistical and computational methods including machine learning to advance our understanding, treatment, and prevention of human disease.

The Centre will be anchored at Aarhus University with hub sites at Copenhagen University and University of Oxford. Prof. Naomi Wray, Michael Davys Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Big Data Institute at the University of Oxford is the SMARTBiomed Director. The leadership executive team includes five co-PIs, Professor Chris Holmes, Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Oxford, Professor Cecilia Lindgren, Professor of Genomic Endocrinology & Metabolism, Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, Professor Bjarni Jóhann Vilhjálmsson, Professor of Statistical and Psychiatric Genetics, National Centre for Register-based Research, Aarhus University and Associate Professor Erin Gabriel, Section of Biostatistics at the University of Copenhagen.

SMARTBiomed is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation and the Villum Foundation. Funding has been secured to support a 10-year research plan. SMARTBiomed will support  researchers who focus on method and software development for analysis of, and inference from, human health-related data, advancing applications in medicine. We will create a vibrant international community of researchers, both virtually and in-person, providing an exciting environment of collaboration to attract early-career researchers from a wide variety of fields, working as a team towards unified goals .

We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic scientist with the following competencies and experience:

Essential experience and skills:

• You have a PhD in biology, physics, geology, chemistry or a related field such as artifact conversation, biogeochemistry and geochemistry and
• You are experienced with general wet lab approaches and techniques, and
• You are experienced in fluorescent microscopy and staining techniques and, or
• You are experienced with spectroscopy techniques and approaches and/or
• You are experienced with atomic force microscopy techniques and approaches.
• You have an interest in natural environments and an understanding of sediments
• You have some experience studying bio-mineral interactions or characterization of organic matrices
• You have proficient English and communication skills and ability and drive to work in teams

We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic scientist with the following competencies and experience:

Demonstrated experiences:

• With a variety of microbial cultivation methods
• Investigations of bacteria-surface interactions
• Molecular biology (including transfer experiments)

Experience and skills:

• You have a PhD in microbiology or a related field such as microbial ecology and biogeochemistry
• You are experienced in fluorescent microscopy and staining techniques
• You have an interest in natural environments and the plastisphere
• You have some experience with studying biofilm formation
• You have proficient English and communication skills and ability to work in teams
• Knowledge of how to study how different stressors influence bacterial growth and evolution
• Knowledge of both soil and sediment components
• Knowledge of Plastisphere development
• Experience in communicating your science

Please document and/or elaborate on your experiences and skills in the motivated letter of application and in the CV.

We are seeking a highly motivated and dynamic Researcher with expertise in analysis and interpretation of high-throughput multi-omic data (genome-wide association data, single cell and spatial omics etc.) to work in the Hansen Group for Genomic Physiology and Translation. The position is a 2-year position to start November 1, 2024, or after agreement.

Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Section of Environmental Chemistry and Physics invites applicants for a postdoc on the filter function of agricultural soils. The postdoc is part of the project, PHISHES, an EU horizon soil mission project. The project starts 1st September 2024 and runs for 48 months. Depending on availability and competences we seek 1-2 postdocs to take part in the project for three years.

Agricultural soils have a dual role as growth medium and filter for pollutants. In the PHISHES project we investigate how different managements affect the soils ecosystem services with focus on the filter function for nitrate, pesticides, PFAS and Nitrification Inhibitors (NI). We compare conventional agricultural practices (tillage) with conservations agricultural, focusing on how these two practices affect the build up of organic matter in and on (mulch layer) the soil and thereby the soil’s filter function. The project is cross-disciplinary combining agricultural science with environmental chemistry and toxicology, with the aim at developing digital tool(s) to investigate how agricultural management affects the soil filter function and thereby the water quality in adjacent streams.

The task of the postdoc(s) will include data handling, model setup and development, applying the soil-crop-atmosphere model Daisy, as well as collaboration with the project partners. 

We are inviting applications for two Post-doctoral positions of 24 months each in the research group of Biochemical Engineering at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen (Biochemical Engineering – Institut for Plante- og Miljøvidenskab – Københavns Universitet (ku.dk)).

The research group, headed by Prof. Sotirios Kampranis (Sotirios Kampranis – Plant Biochemistry Employees (ku.dk)), is driven by the long-term vision to promote sustainable living by replacing harmful chemical synthesis and over-harvesting of natural resources with biotechnological synthesis.

The focus of this project is to establish yeast-based biosensors. The incoming postdoctoral scientists will create yeast cells utilizing G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) or engineered transcription factors. These biosensors will then be used to sense the presence of small molecules or magnetic fields. The long-term aim of this project is to develop new, cutting-edge technologies to identify new food and beverage ingredients (e.g. sweeteners, aromas, etc.) and to achieve their industrial production at scale using tunable genetic circuits that are controlled by magnetic fields.

The postdoc will be expected to conduct fieldwork in collaboration with other project members for 12 weeks + two periods of two weeks in two 9th grade classes in a Danish school and be responsible for a study based on this fieldwork focused on which identifications are enacted and ascribed among students and teachers through social category labels and their associated practices (linguistic, behavioural, interactional) in everyday school life. The study will illuminate which attitudes and alignments to different categories they construct through their practices and their reflexive comments and how the identifications relate to educational orientations and ideas of educability.

The postdoc is required to be able to work independently as well as engage actively in and contribute to the research team and the collective project, which investigates young people’s engagement in digital communities alongside their everyday practice at school and their reflections on educational influences and experiences. The project seeks to answer the overall questions: How is educability constructed and enacted in everyday school life and digital encounters? How do students reflect on their educational path and future aspirations? And which cultural models of educability can we identify across these domains to illuminate the challenges and refine our theorisation of contemporary mass education systems?

The postdoc position involves contributing to the publication of at least two international articles, participating in a number of seminars and conferences at the University of Copenhagen and abroad as well as a 2 week’s research stay at a European university with one of the project’s international collaborators.

We are looking for two highly motivated and dynamic postdoctoral researchers for two-year positions, both to commence on 1 November 2024 or after agreement.

You will either be responsible for the research in swine or avian influenza viruses and will be part of the research group for Veterinary and Zoonotic Virology (VEZ-VIR).

The Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies is a unique international and interdisciplinary research environment that hosts area studies as well as comparative disciplines such as the study of religions, minority studies and comparative culture studies.

The project “Pious Practices among Danish Muslims. Diversity, Devotion and Aesthetics” (funded by the Danish Research Council in 2024–2026) investigates performative activities among Danish Muslims which is a landscape of rich devotional traditions with roots in many cultures.

We are now looking for a post-doc researcher to study the emerging scenes for Islamic art in Scandinavia. It will identify how and where interaction takes place when artistic practices intersect with Muslim piety. The artistic practices can be visual arts, music, literature or performance and the scene can be performance stages, art galleries or literary forums as well as social media and websites. The project is not geographically limited to Denmark, transnational links and expressive forms are expected – yet they should be grounded in artistic practices of Muslims in Denmark. The researcher is expected to carry out an independent research project under supervision and as a result publish two academic articles. Alternative modes of documentation and communication of the project, such as curating a digital exhibition or organizing a reading event, are also welcome.

We are looking for a highly motivated computational scientist with the following key competences:

• PhD or equivalent degree in bioinformatics, biology, microbiology or similar.
• Passion for working in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment.

Preferred skills:

• Gut microbiome research
• Diet microbiome interactions
• Bioinformatics
• Data integration, data fusion and bio statistics
• Experience in handling large data sets from human intervention studies
• Good collaboration and organization skills

Further information on the Department is linked at https://www.science.ku.dk/english/about-the-faculty/organisation/. Inquiries about the position can be made to Professor Morten Arendt Rasmussen, mortenr@food.ku.dk.

The position is open from 1 September 2024 or as soon as possible thereafter and will run for 3 years.

The University wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.