Research Assistant

Part time: 17.5 hours per week (0.5 FTE)

Fixed term: for 24 months

The Opportunity:

Where discovery never stops. Be part of something bigger.

With roles from hospitality to research, there’s a career for everyone at the University of Edinburgh. We can offer opportunities for you to develop in your career and make a real difference in the communities around us while contributing to the world at large.

The University of Edinburgh is a world-class organisation. We look for the best in the field across all disciplines and provide a working environment where academics can develop their careers and passion for their chosen subject area.

Volcanic debris avalanches can travel tens of kilometres beyond the volcano that produced them, and we still cannot explain why. This Leverhulme Trust-funded post will test whether granular vibrations – “granular heating” – are what weakens these flows and lets them run so far.

Working with Dr Eric Breard in the School of GeoSciences and with international partners, you will analyse samples and field datasets from the Chimborazo debris avalanche in Ecuador, carrying out grain-size and mechanical characterisation of the deposits and interpreting photogrammetric and geological field data.

You will also design and run high-pressure shear-cell experiments on natural and analogue granular materials at Chengdu University of Technology, develop discrete-element simulations of granular heating and fragmentation, and feed the results into a new depth-averaged model of debris-avalanche dynamics. Your work will directly improve the physical models used to forecast the behaviour of large volcanic landslides.

We are looking for someone with a PhD in geophysical mass flows or granular physics, strong scientific programming skills, field experience on debris avalanches or comparable deposits, and experience of both granular-flow experiments and depth-averaged or discrete-element modelling. You will be supported to publish, to present at EGU and AGU, to co-supervise students, and to develop towards research independence.

People have always been at the heart of our work. Our people are at the centre of the University community and everything we do. We value colleagues with drive, determination and a passion for what they do. We are a place where everyone is welcome and offer a range of policies and benefits designed to support you in building the right meaningful flexibility that works for you.

A career with us has a range of other benefits that can be tailored to your lifestyle: 

• Leading-edge research
• Opportunities for publication
• Professional development and subject matter expertise
• Working within one of the world’s leading universities

This post is part time (17.5 hours per week, 0.5 FTE). Because the role involves laboratory, field and analytical work, it is based on campus at the King’s Buildings in Edinburgh, and we are happy to discuss flexible working patterns within that.

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