Research Fellow in Plant Acoustics (acoustics-focus)

Full Time Fixed Term for 24 months

About the project

You will join an interdisciplinary project delivered through a collaboration between the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, the School of Biological Sciences, and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southampton.

Plants emit sound—particularly under stress—and may respond to sound in ways that influence physiology, root function and pollination. This project will combine experiments, analysis and multiphysics modelling to establish credible mechanisms, limits and open datasets for plant acoustic emission and reception.

We are recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Associate with an acoustics background to lead the acoustic measurement and analysis components, working closely with biology and modelling colleagues in a vibrant interdisciplinary team.

Key accountabilities / duties

You will:

• Design, set up and deliver robust measurements of plant-generated acoustic emissions under controlled stress conditions.
• Undertake acoustic and vibroacoustic measurements including airborne acoustics, air-coupled ultrasonics, structural vibration/waves.
• Work in specialist facilities including anechoic chambers and controlled experimental environments, ensuring high-quality, repeatable data.
• Develop and apply signal processing workflows for weak transient signals, long-term monitoring, feature extraction and statistical analysis.
• Support sound playback/stimulation protocols for plant response and pollination experiments.
• Contribute to modelling activities through experimental design input and provision of validation datasets.
• Manage and curate research data, contributing to open and reproducible workflows (code, metadata and documentation) in line with project and UKRI expectations.
• Prepare research outputs including papers, conference presentations and contributions to shared project datasets.

Candidate requirements

Essential

• PhD (or near completion) or equivalent qualifications and experience in Acoustics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Signal Processing or a closely related discipline.
• Strong practical experience in experimental acoustics/instrumentation (sensor selection, data acquisition, calibration, uncertainty/rigour and noise control).
• Strong signal processing skills (e.g., using Python and/or MATLAB).
• Ability to work effectively in an interdisciplinary team and communicate clearly across disciplines.
• Experience handling large datasets and using reproducible analysis workflows (e.g. Git/Jupyter/HDF5).

Desirable

• Experience with ultrasonics, vibroacoustics, structural waves, laser Doppler vibrometry, anechoic facilities, soil acoustics, and/or bioacoustics.

This post is aiming to start from June 2026 (by agreement).

For informal enquiries please contact Michal Kalkowski (m.kalkowski@soton.ac.uk)

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