PhD position available - Carbon and energy fluxes in soils

07.01.2025, Wissenschaftliches Personal

You’re interested in digging deeper into how the storage and the turnover of soil carbon is fundamentally influenced by carbon and energy fluxes and passionate about creating a pioneering map where calories are located and microbially transformed in a soil aggregate? Then this exciting PhD opportunity is for you!

The project is part of the SoilSystems SPP (https://soilsystems.net/), a Priority Programme (SPP 2322) funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation). Within SoilSystems, scientists from different disciplines from all over Germany join forces to integrate a thermodynamic description into the processes understanding of soil systems and gain insights into how energy and matter fluxes drive organic carbon dynamics. As part of the SPP, the SoilEnergySpots project is jointly led by Prof. Dr. Nicole Strittmatter (Analytical Chemistry), Prof. Dr. Mirjana Minceva (Biothermodynamics), and Dr. Steffen Schweizer (Soil Science) all at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The project team provides a collaborative environment tailored to provide interdisciplinary and efficient analyses of the planned experiments of the PhD project. 

In this collaborative PhD project, we have designed incubation experiments using organic compounds that contain different amounts of energy. The partners in SoilEnergySpots contribute via heat measurements and imaging mass spectrometric methods. The labeling of the organic compounds with the stable isotope ¹³C will allow tracing its impact on organo-mineral interactions and microbial dynamics. The planned activities integrate tracing the fate and the transformation of organic C into indicative organo-mineral pools and aggregate structures. This will be complemented by modern spectrometry techniques at microscopic scale. The interdisciplinary workflow integrates cutting-edge analytical approaches in a dynamic research team committed to jointly link soil microbial processes and organo-mineral interactions to illuminate carbon and energy fluxes in arable soils. 

We invite applications for a 3-year doctoral position foreseen to start at around April/May 2025. We are looking for a highly motivated, co-operative person with a strong background in soil science or related environmental and biogeochemistry disciplines. The ideal candidate has demonstrated her/his ability to conduct research, from investigating a defined research topic to deriving an improved process understanding and communicating the results. Ideally, the applicant should have some background in (soil) incubation experiments and advanced soil characterization techniques. A strong command of English is indispensable. Skills in R, MATLAB or Python are helpful. The effective exchange within the interdisciplinary collaboration will be crucial and also include some occasional travels. The salary is the German standard for doctoral students (TV-L E13 65%). The Technical University Munich is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women to apply. Disabled applicants with equal qualification and aptitude will be given preferential consideration.

Your application should include a letter of motivation, a CV, academic transcripts (non-official copies are acceptable) and contact details of two academic references. In your letter of motivation please discuss your research ideas and interests, your personal approach in relation to the project description, and describe how past academic or non-academic experiences have prepared you for this position. Please send your application as a single PDF by email with the subject “PhD position SoilEnergySpots” by 31^st January 2025 to application.boku@ls.tum.de. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. For any detailed questions related to the project you can contact Dr. Steffen Schweizer (steffen.schweizer@tum.de).

Kontakt: application.boku@ls.tum.de

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