PhD Position: Microbiology of Arctic Freshwater Lakes

Are you fascinated by microbe-environment interactions and do you enjoy working in a multidisciplinary team? Join CLIMET as a PhD candidate in environmental microbiology to study methane, microbes, and their environment in Greenland’s freshwater lakes.

Methane is an important greenhouse gas whose atmospheric concentration is rising rapidly. It is produced industrially through fossil fuel usage and agriculture, and naturally in lakes and wetlands. In natural systems, methane is consumed by various groups of microorganisms before it even reaches the atmosphere, the so-called ’microbial methane filter’. We currently have little knowledge of the factors that stimulate or inhibit the methane filter and can therefore not predict how it will function in the face of global warming.

The area around Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland harbours thousands of lakes that are not interconnected. Each lake is different, making this area an ideal living laboratory to study the factors that influence the microbial methane filter.

In this NWO-funded consortium which consists of microbiologists, paleo ecologists, ecologists, and limnologists from Radboud University, NIOO-KNAW, and Utrecht University, we will study methane emissions in these lakes on different spatial and temporal scales: from enzymes to atmosphere and from the current day back to the Medieval Climate Anomaly. As the microbiology PhD candidate on this project, you will perform fieldwork and labwork to identify the key microbial players in this ecosystem through metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and exometabolomics. You will then enrich and isolate these organisms and characterise their metabolism and enzymes. There will be opportunities for collaboration and interdisciplinary training in both the Department of Microbiology and the consortium.

You will communicate your results at national and international meetings and in scientific journals. As a member of the Department of Microbiology, you will be expected to contribute 10% of your working time to teaching in the BSc Biology programme or the MSc Microbiology specialisation track. All PhD candidates at the Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences (RIBES) participate in the RIBES Graduate School and have the opportunity to receive training, develop their personal and professional skills, and prepare for their future career.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate.

Requirements:

• You have either a Master's degree in microbiology or a similar degree plus microbiology experience.
• You have experience with bioinformatics and/or -omics data analysis or a desire to learn these skills.
• You have good communication skills and enjoy working in a multidisciplinary team.
• You have a good command of oral and written English.

Salary Benefits:

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).
• You will receive a starting salary of €2,901 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,707 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus.
• We offer Dual Career Coaching. The Dual Career Coaching assists your partner via support, tools, and resources to improve their chances of independently finding employment in the Netherlands.
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20.

Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

38 hours per week

Houtlaan 4