PhD position in methods of optimization for dealing with real-life uncertainty in food humanitarian operations

Are you passionate about optimization methods and helping communities impacted by crises, such as natural disasters and conflicts? Do you want to tackle real-world challenges and support sustainable humanitarian efforts in a complex and uncertain world? If you're eager to develop optimization methods for real-life uncertainties in humanitarian contexts, this PhD position could be the perfect fit for you!

The Operations Research and Logistics group at Wageningen University is seeking a motivated PhD candidate (4-year, full-time) to develop new optimization methodologies for managing uncertainties in humanitarian operations. Today’s pressing issues—such as climate change and global conflicts—have left many individuals in unstable situations, requiring urgent interventions. Whether addressing basic needs during crises or ensuring sustainable, long-term solutions, humanitarian operations face numerous uncertainties, including extreme weather, unreliable information about road access, and fluctuating availability of resources like food donations. This PhD project will explore how to better manage these uncertainties, offering theoretical advancements in optimization methodologies for real-world uncertainties in humanitarian challenges.

Your contribution and responsibilities include:

• Develop optimization methodology to address uncertainty in humanitarian operations. This includes advancing stochastic and robust optimization methods to account for dependencies in uncertainty—such as common factors like weather that affect beneficiary numbers across camps during humanitarian crises—as well as adapting these methods to handle inconsistent information in model components, where, for example, demand distributions may be unknown for some food supply locations.
• Collaborate closely with humanitarian organizations to align research with real-world needs and provide specific solutions for the organizations that you work with;
• Use practical insights from the humanitarian field to guide theoretical research, advancing innovations in optimization under uncertainty (e.g., in stochastic and/or robust optimization).

You will work here
The research is embedded within the Operations Research and Logistics Group, which is led by Prof. Dr. ir. Sander de Leeuw. You will be supervised by dr. Meike Reusken and dr. Argyris Kanellopoulos.

Requirements:

You have knowledge and interest in addressing key challenges in humanitarian operations, with a strong ambition to integrate theory and practice in this context, while also being eager to tackle methodological challenges in stochastic and robust optimization.

You also possess:

• A successfully completed MSc degree in a discipline relevant to the PhD project (e.g., operations research, operations management, industrial engineering, computer science);
• Experience with quantitative optimization methods (e.g., mathematical programming) and related software and programming languages;
• An interest in working together with people from the humanitarian sector and researchers from other disciplines.

For this position your command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognised Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here.

Salary Benefits:

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• Partially paid parental leave;
• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed December bonus of 8.3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will receive a fully funded PhD position and you will be offered a course program tailored to your needs and the research team.

The gross salary for the first year is € 2.872,- per month rising to € 3.670,- in the fourth year in according to the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale P). This is based on a full-time working week of 38 hours. We offer a temporary contract for 18 months which will be extended for the duration of the project if you perform well.

There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a unique position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.

You are going to work at the greenest and most innovative campus in Holland, and at a university that has been chosen as the “Best University” in the Netherlands for the 19th consecutive time.

Coming from abroad
Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Because we expect you to work and live in the Netherlands our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.
Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. We can assist you with any additional advice and information about for example helping your partner to find a job, housing, or schooling. Finally, certain categories of international staff may be eligible for a tax exemption on a part of their salary during the first five years in the Netherlands.

38 hours per week

Droevendaalsesteeg