The European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) Fellowship Programme is an international researcher mobility programme offering 33 fellowships for the 2011/2012 academic year. It proposes 10-month residencies in one of the 14 participating Institutes: Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Cambridge, Helsinki, Jerusalem, Lyons, Nantes, Paris, Uppsala, Vienna, Wassenaar. The Programme builds on the strong reputation of the Institutes for Advanced Study for promoting the concentrated, self-directed work of excellent researchers within the stimulating environment of a multidisciplinary and international group of fellows.

EURIAS Fellowships are mainly offered in the fields of the humanities and social sciences but may also be granted to scholars in natural and exact sciences, if their proposed research project does not require laboratory facilities. The diversity of the 14 participating IAS —which have agreed on a common selection procedure— offers a wide range of possible research contexts in Europe for worldwide scholars. Applicants select up to three IAS outside their country of nationality or residence as possible host institutions.

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Uppsala University hereby declares the following position to be open for application:
PhD position in Historical Geology and Palaeontology
at the Department of Earth Sciences, Palaeobiology

Starting date: Open from the application deadline

Palaeobiology and phylogeny of Cambrian lophotrochozoans

The Cambrian explosion some 540 Ma ago generated a large number of sclerite-bearing taxa whose relationships are beginning to be understood by use of the stem- and crown-group distinction. In particular, large numbers of putative lophotrochozoans (i.e. annelids, brachiopods, molluscs and their close relatives) are known, although their phylogeny is poorly understood. We intend to address this question by a large-scale study of the rich Cambrian fossil record of scleritome animals. One focus of the work will be a detailed analysis of exceptionally preserved lophotrochozoans from the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang.

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In the coming six years (2010-2015) ISIS has made available special funds to build an integrated interdisciplinary thematic profile area which focuses on lslam and Muslim societies. One of the main aims is to integrate and mobilize the knowledge and expertise in the field.

The Ph.D. candidates will be appointed at the participating university with which the supervisor is affiliated.

The positions are 1,0 fte for 4 years (or 0,8 for 5 years).

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In this project you will develop devices for the generation of molecular hydrogen and electrical energy from streaming water using the streaming potential. By coupling the generation of electricity to the generation of hydrogen in one process, we aim to increase efficiency as well as provide energy in an alternative storable form.

In your Ph.D. project you will be using nanochannels and nanoporous membranes. It will specifically be your task to optimize the pore wall surface to obtain maximal mechanical-to-electrical conversion efficiencies. You will have to identify the optimal wall material and investigate the influence of different chemical functionalizations. For example, there have been reports that the generation efficiency will strongly increase when the liquid slips past the walls, because this decreases the hydrodynamic resistance. Part of your work will therefore be to chemically functionalize the channel walls to introduce liquid slip. At the same time energy generation will increase with pore surface charge density, which is also influenced by the surface functionalization. Influencing the surface charge density will therefore be another goal.

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