Research Associate in Transportation (CIRCLE)

The role

The CIRCLE (Community and Infrastructure Resilience to Climate-geological Long-term Effects) project at the University of Bristol is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow to contribute to Task 2, focused on quantitative impact assessments of communities and interdependent infrastructure networks under multi-hazard stress-testing scenarios. This task involves assessing risks to critical physical infrastructure, networks, and services during complex events such as tsunamis, cascading failures, and coastal hazards. The successful candidate will lead the development and implementation of agent-based models (ABM) to simulate evacuation behaviours through transportation networks under tsunami scenarios, to integrate these models into broader multi-hazard resilience stress tests.

What will you be doing?

Responsibilities include designing and calibrating evacuation models for coastal communities (Canada and Indonesia), incorporating geospatial, demographic, and hazard data to simulate realistic human behaviour and infrastructure response under stress. The role involves modelling interdependencies among infrastructure systems (e.g., roads, power, communications, emergency services) that influence evacuation outcomes and community resilience. The candidate will conduct scenario-based analyses under varying hazard intensities and infrastructure disruptions, producing performance and resilience metrics such as evacuation delays, network failures, and access to essential services. Strong collaboration with a multi-disciplinary research team and engagement with community stakeholders is critical to ensure the models reflect local conditions and priorities. 

You should apply if

Applicants must hold a PhD (or be working towards one) in Civil or Systems Engineering, Transportation Modelling, Geography, Urban Planning, or a related field, with expertise in agent-based modelling, evacuation simulation, or infrastructure systems. Proficiency in programming (Python, Matlab, MATSim), spatial analysis (GIS), and quantitative modelling is required. Experience with infrastructure interdependency analysis or resilience metrics is an asset. 

Additional information

For informal queries please contact: Raffaele de Risi - raffaele.derisi@bristol.ac.uk

To find out more about what it's like to work in the Faculty of Engineering, and how the Faculty supports people to achieve their potential, please see our staff blog:

https://engineering.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/category/engineering-includes-me/

Contract type: Fixed term until 31/05/2026

This advert will close at 23:59 UK time on Wednesday 22nd October.

Interviews are expected to take place on Tuesday 4th November.

Our strategy and mission

We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values.

The University of Bristol aims to be a place where everyone feels able to be themselves and do their best in an inclusive working environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people - because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.

Advert information