Postdoctoral position - Environmental assessment of circular economy strategies in the Swiss building stock

Job description

The candidate will be the project coordinator for a running project about circularity in the building sector with a team of 15 researchers.

The candidate will co-supervise two doctoral students of the Ecological Systems Design Group and collaborate with them on the development of frameworks for assessing circular economy strategies. This will entail utilizing methodologies such as life cycle assessment (LCA), material flow analysis (MFA), and statistical analysis. In particular, the following tasks will be performed in collaboration with the two doctoral students:

• modeling of the embodied and operational energy and emissions of the Swiss building stock using Python programming language;
• conducting LCAs with the Brightway library, as well as MFAs while taking into account spatial and temporal characteristics of the building stock;
• defining and assessing various scenarios and circular economy strategies, such as increased wood use, increased reuse/recycling of building components and materials, etc;
• developing metrics to assess circularity in the construction sector.

In addition, the candidate will further develop her/his research profile in the group, attend conferences and supervise Bachelor and Master thesis students.

Your profile

We are looking for suitable candidates with a doctoral degree in environmental science, environmental engineering, data science or related fields with excellent academic records. Interested candidates should have strong research backgrounds and solid independent research ability. Experiences with life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, data analysis and modeling in Python are desired. Familiarity with building stock modeling is beneficial. Good verbal and written communication skills in English are required, additional German language skills would be appreciated