The University of Twente (Netherlands) - We stand for life sciences and technology, for high tech and human touch, for education and research that matter, for new technology, which drives change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university in the Netherlands; divided over six faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. The University of Twente has a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out pioneering research.
The faculty ITC provides international postgraduate education, research and project services in the field of geo-information science and earth observation using remote sensing and GIS. The aim of ITC's activities is the international exchange of knowledge, focusing on capacity building and institutional development in developing countries and emerging economies. The Faculty ITC is offering 2 PhD positions (Promovendus) The PhDs will conduct their research in the Department of GeoInformation Processing. Our objective is to develop methods and techniques that process spatio-temporal data into valuable and accessible geo-information that improves our understanding of complex and dynamic processes and helps in decision-making at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Position 1: Research will focus on spatio-temporal design and modeling of sustainable agricultural systems, which are geographically appropriate and are optimal in terms of producing the best combination of ecosystem services. This assumes optimizing for net food production while maintaining biodiversity, energy self-sufficiency, and providing for societal needs. Research will be conducted in collaboration with the STARS project, which aims at improving our understanding of how remote sensing technology can contribute to transforming smallholder farming, and the GAIA project that seeks geographically appropriate and sustainable agricultural land use and management that minimizes resource use, improves healthy diet, diversifies agricultural locations and practices, to build resilient ecosystems. Data and applications are expected to be drawn from case studies in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The applicant must have an MSc or equivalent degree in computational ecology or biology, economics, mathematics or computer science. If coming from the computer science background, affinity with ecological and economic subjects is an advantage. If the background is from ecology then strong quantitative skills, and modeling and programing experience are expected. Previous experience with system dynamics and/or agent based modeling is a plus. Good English skills are required. Position 2: Information and communication technologies have facilitated the acquisition, online storage and exchange of large amounts of georeferenced data by non-professionals. Activities in this relatively new domain fall in the realm of user-generated geographic content (UGGC), e.g. crowd-sourced or volunteered geographic information (OpenStreetMap) and geo-social media (Twitter). UGGC is often highly heterogeneous and might be massive in volume. These two characteristics have impeded the full utilization of UGGC to support informed decision-making and to move towards a true “information society”. This research project thus deals with the development of novel methods and tools to handle UGGC. Special emphasis is placed on hybrid and distributed processing, i.e. crowd-sourced supervised machine learning and cloud computing. The research will be carried out by focusing on a case study, which the PhD candidate will be able to shape significantly. Potential domains include e-health, environmental monitoring, or crisis management in countries with developing infrastructures. This PhD candidate should have a Master's Degree in a relevant field (information sciences, geography, computer science, or variations thereof). Applicants with a strong background in a potential case study domain will also be considered. In any case, s/he should have an analytical mind, at least basic programming skills and statistics or machine learning experience, and the willingness to look beyond disciplinary boundaries to acquire necessary domain and methodological expertise as needed. Good English skills required. Organizational or content Information: The successful candidate will be employed for a period of 4 years. Salary and conditions are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of the Dutch Universities. The gross monthly salary starts at € 2083,- gross per month in the first year, leading up to € 2664,- gross per month in the last year excluding allowances in accordance with the job profile ‘Promovendus’, under the University System for Job Classification (UJC). We offer an inspiring and challenging international and academic environment. For further information you may contact our HR-advisor, Ms Marianne Assink (email m.f.g.assink- [email protected]) for procedural and organizational issues. For content issues on position 1 you may contact Dr. Alexey Voinov ([email protected]) and for position 2 Dr. Frank Ostermann ([email protected]). Applications should be uploaded no later than July 30, 2014 by using the application button at the University Twente web site and should include a CV, and letter of application. To apply go to: http://www.utwente.nl/vacatures/?VacatureID=670888 You are also invited to check our website www.itc.nl  -- Alexey Voinov _____________________________________________________________________ Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) University of Twente (http://www.itc.nl) P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands Tel: +31(0) 53 487 4496, WWW personal: http://www.likbez.com/AV Twitter: @alexeyvoinov
