Postdoctoral Research Associate / Fellow

University of Exeter - Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy

Salary Details
The starting salary for a Postdoctoral Research Associate will be from £34,610 on Grade (E), depending on qualifications and experience.
The starting salary for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow will be from £43,482 on Grade (F), depending on qualifications and experience.
This new full–time post is available from 1st July 2026 on a fixed-term basis until 30th September 2029. The post is funded by a UKRI-EPSRC project, with additional project investigators based at the University of St. Andrews.

The post
The Faculty wishes to recruit an experienced and independent Postdoctoral Research Associate or Fellow to work in the group of Prof. J. Anders on a funded EPSRC research project entitled "Good Enough” Prediction Of Realistic Open Quantum System Dynamics For Magnetism, Transport and Chemical Reactions. The successful candidate will investigate the dynamics of systems that are strongly coupled to bath(s), giving rise to non-Markovian effects that can be observed in experiments [see Hartmann et al. arxiv.org/abs/2512.07378].
Our goal is to go beyond highly efficient classical modelling of such dynamics [see Hogg et al. doi.org/10.1063/5.0222528] and include quantum aspects not fully, but in a “good enough” way. I.e. capturing the emergence of some quantum properties reasonably well, while the computational cost increases only moderately. One direction is spin dynamics problems, specifically extensions of the Landau-Lifschitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation, where such solutions are required to solve systems consisting of many thousands of interacting spins [see also Berritta et al. doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.109.174441 and Weber et al. arxiv.org/abs/2508.11315].
The post is available starting 1st July 2026 or soon thereafter (negotiable) until 30th September 2029 on a fixed-term basis.
The successful applicant will be based at Streatham Campus Exeter (hybrid working and/or part-time arrangements can be discussed), and work with the quantum non-equilibrium group. The Fellow will also collaborate closely with the other investigators on the grant, Prof Brendon Lovett and Prof Jonathan Keeling at the University of St. Andrews, as well as the postdoc based there.

About you
The successful applicant will be able to develop research objectives, projects and proposals; identify sources of research funding and contribute to the process of securing funds and make presentations at conferences and other events.
Applicants will already possess, or imminently complete, a relevant PhD or equivalent qualification/experience in a related field of study. The successful applicant will be a recognised researcher in open quantum systems or quantum information or quantum optics, and possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline to develop research programmes and methodologies. They will also be able to work collaboratively, supervise the work of others and act as team leader as required. Applicants will be able to independently identify research questions and answer to them, to support their analytical work with numerical simulations coded e.g. in Python, and present their work in written notes and manuscripts, as well as give presentations to the project team and external stakeholders.
Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role, by clicking the 'Apply' button.

Further information
For further information please contact Prof J. Anders, e-mail j.anders@exeter.ac.uk.
Interviews are expected to take place in early April 2026.