PhD Fellowship/Scholarship in Intelligent Heat Stress Management in Cattle Barn Using an AI Agent

Applicants are invited for a PhD Fellowship/Scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Civil and Architectural Engineering programme. The position is available from 15 January 2027 or later. You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.

Title:

Intelligent heat stress management in cattle barn using an AI agent

Research area and project description:

If you are looking for a research opportunity and a PhD position, the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the Faculty of Technical Science in Aarhus University provides such a chance. The position is available from 15th January 2027. 

Reliably detecting heat stress in time has been always a challenge in cattle barn. Early signs of heat stress can be subtle while conditions may deteriorate rapidly, making timely intervention difficult. After the first step of detecting heat stress, farmers need clear and practical recommendations on what actions to take. To provide solutions for these challenges, we invite applications to a PhD position, aiming at designing and developing an AI-agent to detect heat stress in early stage and provide actionable recommendations to farmers. 

Project description: The candidates are inquired to prepare for a 2 – 3 pages project description for the topic, including a sound state-of-the-art, the key tasks, and a research plan.

Qualifications and specific competences:

The successful candidate for this PhD position must have:

• A MSc degree in engineering, e.g., Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, or Energy Engineering.
• Good knowledge in building ventilation systems, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, machine learning, data analysis, and coding e.g., Python.
• Understand sensors, actuators, data acquisition, and control systems for monitoring and managing animal environments.
• Highly motivated in design and development of reliable LLM-based agents, integrating APIs and indoor environmental control systems, and translating natural-language and combining real-time and historical data to provide actionable recommendations.
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English.
• Critical thinking ability and excellent problem-solving skills

Place of employment and place of work:

The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is Inge Lehmanns Gade 10, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Contacts:

Applicants seeking further information regarding the PhD position are invited to contact: 

• Li Rong, li.rong@cae.au.dk (main supervisor)
• Guoqiang Zhang, guoqiang.zhang@cae.au.dk (co-supervisor)

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide. If answers cannot be found there, please contact:

• admission.gradschool.tech@au.dk 

How to apply:

Please submit your application by clicking the 'Apply' button

Application deadline is 14 October 2026 at 23:59 CEST.

Preferred starting date is 15 January 2027.

Please note: 

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be considered.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications. 

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which everyone has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants. All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.    

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