PhD position: Experimental investigation of population dynamics under flow 

Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) - PhD position: Experimental investigation of population dynamics under flow

Job description

The PhD project concerns the experimental study of the dynamics of bacterial populations under flowing conditions. To this purpose bacterial colonies will be grown in microfluidic devices. The main emphasis in this project is the development of a controllable microfluidic environment able to sustain the bacterial growth and on the accurate measurement of the flow effects on the dynamics of the population. The growth of the bacterial populations will be observed by means of confocal
microscopes and recorded with high-resolution cameras. Computational modeling will be used to control the flow conditions and to model the population growth. The PhD project will involve work at the interface between experimental microfluidic, biology and physics. Tools from statistical physics will be employed to develop a quantitative understanding of the interplay between fluid transport and the biological processes in bacterial populations.

Research
The project 'Population dynamics under flow' focuses on the key fundamental aspects of population dynamics under flowing conditions. Examples include plankton or bacteria colonies in Oceans or lakes living and growing while being transported by turbulent water currents. The growth of bacterial colonies is influenced by several factors amongst which the local population density. Fluid transport has a key influence on the evolution of bacterial concentrations e.g. controlling the behaviour of the local concentration and hence an impact on the dynamics of the whole population. Particularly in natural ecosystem, the replication times of the individuals can match the time scales of the turbulent fluid flows giving rise to a very complex interplay between the fluid and the population dynamics.

Requirements

We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD-student with strong experimental skills and a strong background in fluid mechanics and flow-measurement techniques. The PhD candidate should have a MSc in physics, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering or similar and familiarity with fluid dynamics. The ideal candidate has experience with the design and execution of laboratory experiments, and has affinity with numerical simulations. Notions of biology are a plus. The PhD-candidate should also have good written and oral communication skills in English.

Conditions of employment

When fulfilling a PhD position at the FOM foundation, you will get the status of junior scientist.
You will have an employee status and can participate in all the employee benefits FOM offers. You will get a contract for 4 years. Your salary will be up to a maximum of 2,610 euro gross per month.The salary is supplemented with a holiday allowance of 8% and an end-of-year bonus of 8.33%.
You are supposed to have a thesis finished at the end of your four year term with FOM.
A training programme is part of the agreement. You and your supervisor will make up a plan for the additional education and supervising that you specifically need. This plan also defines which teaching activities you will be responsible (up to a maximum of 10% of your time). The conditions of employment of the FOM-foundation are laid down in the Collective Labour Agreement for Research Centres (CAO-Onderzoekinstellingen), more exclusive information is available at this website under Personeelsinformatie (in Dutch) or under Personnel (in English).
General information about working at FOM can be found in the English part of this website under Personnel. The'FOM-sollicitatiecode' (in Dutch) applies to this position.

Contract type

Temporary
four years

Additional information

End procedure	14 July 2011

Prof.dr. F. Toschi
tel. +31 (0)40 247 39 11 or +31 (0)40 247 31 10.

More information about employer Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM)