Post doctor in Environmental Analytical Chemistry - Befattningen är under tillsättning eller redan tillsatt, och det är inte längre möjligt att lämna in en ansökan

Post doctor in Environmental Analytical Chemistry

The Department of Chemistry seeks a post doctor for development of analytical methods and data processing workflows for contaminants in indoor air. The employment is full-time for two years with access May 1st, 2023 or by agreement. Last day to apply is January 8th 2023.

Project description and working tasks 
This postdoctoral position is part of the European Union financed research project INQUIRE, which aims at generating the knowledge, tools and measures needed to significantly enhance European indoor air quality. Its research on hazardous determinants and their sources, risk factors and effects will focus in particular on infants and young children up to 5 years old. The post doctor will linked to a work package on chemical and biological characterization of indoor air contaminants. The main objective of the post doctor project is to develop tools and data processing workflows for suspect and non-target screening of complex mixture and comprehensively characterize semi-volatile organic (SVOC) contaminants in indoor dust. For this purpose, we will use two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) mass spectrometry (MS) and GC high-resolution MS (HRMS) for data generation and a combination of vendor and in-house developed data processing pipelines. The post doctor will scrutinize the resulting data to tentatively identify as many dust contaminants as possible. The results will be collected in a comprehensive database, which will be used to find recurring profiles of chemicals and prioritize substances of concern based on frequency of detection and abundance.

The Department of Chemistry offers access to an excellent mass spectrometry infrastructure within the Trace Analysis Platform (http://tap.chem.umu.se/). You will work with thriving small teams in a large interdisciplinary environment.

Qualifications
To be appointed under the postdoctoral agreement, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirements must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the appointment decision.

To be appointed under the postdoctoral agreement, priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree prior to that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organisations, military service, or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area. Postdoctoral fellows who are to teach or supervise must have taken relevant courses in teaching and learning in higher education.

The doctoral degree should be within analytical chemistry, environmental analytical chemistry or an equivalent subject area. 

Previous extensive experience with analysis of complex environmental samples using GCxGC-MS or GC-HRMS is required, preferably both. It is also desirable that you have worked with data evaluation and hypothesis driven prioritization of full-spectrum HRMS data, utilizing suspect screening and non-target screening approaches. You shall have documented experience from the area of mass spectrometry, including data alignment and manual spectral interpretation. Experience with KNIME and python coding and multivariate statistical analysis is also considered a merit. Good knowledge of English, both written and spoken, and a very good ability to write scientific publications is required. You must be creative with good teamwork skills, be initiative-driven and have a high degree of independence. 

Application 
A complete application should contain the following documents:

• A cover letter including a description of your qualifications, research interests and motivation for applying, and your contact information (maximum 2 pages)
• A curriculum vitae, including a publication list 
• Copies of your PhD thesis and relevant publications 
• Verified copies of degree certificates or equivalent alternatively documentation providing information on when doctoral degree is expected to be obtained, including documentation of completed academic courses and obtained grades 
• Name and contact information of at least two reference persons 

The application can be written in Swedish or English. Applications must be submitted via our electronic recruiting system. Documents sent electronically must be in Word or PDF format. The closing date is January 8th 2023. 

For more information please contact Professor Peter Haglund, phone: +4690-7866667, email: peter.haglund@umu.se.

Information about the department
Department of Chemistry is the largest department in the Faculty of Science and Technology, with approximately 200 employees, including about 40 doctoral students, and with a strong and expanding research. Three major areas of research; Biological Chemistry, Environmental and Biogeochemistry and Technical Chemistry, represents the research and chemistry education of our department. We are also a strong partner in KBC, The Chemical-Biological Centre. For more information about working at Umeå University: www.umu.se/en/work-with-us/. At Umeå University we have a vibrant postdoc community that brings together postdoc across disciplines by arranging carrier promoting activities (umeapostdocsociety.se).