"Postdoctoral Research Associate"

The Department

The Department of Earth Sciences is one of the very best UK Earth Science departments with an outstanding reputation for excellence in research and teaching. It is regularly ranked in the top 5 of UK departments and is within the global top 40. The department has around 35 academic staff, 15 research staff, 70 PhD students and 250 undergraduate students. Its research covers a spectrum of Earth Science disciplines around three broad themes: Earth Surface Processes and Hazards; Climate, Environment, and Resources; Physics and Chemistry of Earth and Planetary Processes. The themes reflect our aim not only to undertake fundamental and intrinsically excellent research, but also research of societal importance. We collaborate widely, and within Durham we work closely with both the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience and the Durham Energy Institute.

The Department of Earth Sciences holds a departmental Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of its efforts to promote gender equality and address challenges particular to the earth sciences.

More information on the department, its research and its facilities can be found at https://www.dur.ac.uk/earth.sciences/

The Role

To assist in two research projects, managed by Professor Martin Evans (Geography) and Prof. Fred Worrall (Earth Sciences) focused upon enhancing carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems. The projects require data analysis and fieldwork and thus would allow for flexible working hours. The first project is focused upon enhanced greenhouse gas removal by peatlands using a variety of techniques (e.g. Biochar addition). This BBSRC sponsored project is now at the stage where we need assistance in analysing four years of data and writing results for publication. The second project is sponsored by EPSRC through their Northern Net Zero Accelerator to understand the potential for nature-based and land-based solutions to bring a major tourist attraction to net-zero with the benefit of being able to demonstrate benefits given almost one million person visits. The job will conduct a field sampling and data collation to provide the information for assessing the potential for achieving net zero.

This post is fixed term for duration of 12 months, dictated by the project funding. The funding is available from 1/4/2026 and would therefore end 31/3/2027.

The post-holder is employed to work on a research project which will be led by Prof. Worrall and Evans. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.