Postdoctoral position in Data Science and Urban Metabolism

The Louvain Research Institute for Landscape, Architecture and Built Environment (LAB) at the Université Catholique de Louvain is looking for a motivated and qualified post-doctoral researcher in Urban Metabolism and Data Science. The research will be supervised by Prof. Daniela Perrotti (Urban Metabolism) and Prof. Damien Claeys (Systems Theory applied to design) in the Urban Metabolism research team.

The position is of a duration of 18 months and is part of the interdisciplinary research project “CO-HABIT: Towards an animal-inclusive design in the Brussels Capital Region”, involving two postdocs and a PhD researcher, and co-led with the KU Leuven Department of Architecture, Research group Planning for People, Urbanity and Landscapes (P.PUL), Prof. Bruno Notteboom and Prof. Hans Leinfelder.

The CO-HABITAT project will develop a novel set of tools to advance the design of urban public spaces in the Brussels Capital Region based on the nature and characteristics of local wildlife habitats. It will bridge urban ecology and design with citizen science and involve a range of policy and industry stakeholders.

The work of the postdoc researcher will consist of developing the CO-HABITAT data platform which will centralise and harmonise primary data on urban wildlife in Brussels. The researcher will investigate availability and resolution of data issued from wildlife monitoring campaigns and research initiatives at the urban and regional scale. The data platform will consists of: i) a data dashboard collecting and systematizing quantitative and qualitative datasets on urban wildlife in Brussels (species occurrence, movements, and spatiotemporal habitat patterns), ranging across scales and resolution levels and sourced from local authorities’ databases, independent crowdsourcing initiatives as well as scientific reports and policy briefs; ii) a data communication and visualization system that will allow agile data integration in the design work and appropriation of the data dashboard by the design researcher and stakeholders involved in the research.

Start date: between 1st November 2021 and 1st December 2021 (pending on the availability of the selected candidate).

The postdoc researcher will be based at the Brussels-St Gilles campus of the LAB Institute, Rue Henri Wafelaerts 47, 1060 Brussels.

The CO-HABIT project is funded by the Brussels Capital Region, Institute for Research and Innovation "Innoviris", Prospective Research programme (Belgium).

Further details about this position can be obtained from the supervisors, Prof. Daniela Perrotti, [email protected] , and Prof. Damien Claeys, [email protected] .