Research Assistant (and PhD candidate - Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network)

Location: South Kensington 

Applications are invited for a fully-funded a postgraduate research assistant position that will also lead to the award of a PhD at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London. 

You will join the multinational TALENTS Marie Skłodowska-Curie DoctoralTraining Network as a Doctoral Candidate (DC) and you will be employed as a research assistant at Imperial College. Simultaneously, you will also be enrolled as a PhD student. The training network ‘TALENTS: The doctoral rift science network for the energy transition’ involves Imperial College and six other European universities, who will recruit 12 DCs in total. The position is funded for 3 years. 

The position available at Imperial (DC12) will conduct PhD research under the heading ‘Reconciling records of fault initiation, growth and interaction from geomorphic and subsurface datasets: impacts on sediment sourcing and seismic hazard’. 

The objective of this role is to improve our understanding of how signals of fault evolution and slip rate history are recorded in the basin stratigraphy and landscape geomorphology. Our aim is to provide a powerful tool to constrain fault activity and slip rates where subsurface data is sparse or non-existent. The Gulf of Evia, Greece, has been identified as a key location of study. The project will involve field data collection, subsurface data analysis including seismic reflection data, and GIS work and is suited to Earth Scientists with an interest in structural geology, geomorphology and tectonics. 

Duties and responsibilities 

The main responsibility of the post is to produce research that will contribute to the TALENTS initiative and to produce material for your PhD thesis. You will receive academic support and guidance, but you will be expected to develop your own research ideas and communicate your research findings in conference presentations, written reports and published papers. You will need to engage with peers and members of the Doctoral Network, and to undertake the training and activities developed for the programme alongside your research.

Essential requirements

The most important requirement is that you have the drive, commitment and motivation to undertake PhD level study over a 3 year time period. You will have the ability to work independently to solve science problems and you will need to have some prior experience of carrying out research, ideally at Masters level. You will have some prior understanding of structural geology, geomorphology and sedimentary geology from practical (field) and theoretical perspectives. 

Further Information

Please note the Europeanmobility and eligibility requirements for this role as part of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network:

• Researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies etc.) in the UK for more than 12 months in the past three years immediately before their date of recruitment, but applicants of any nationality are eligible.
• must not have a doctoral degree at the date of their recruitment
• can be of any nationality
• should be enrolled in a doctoral programme during the project

For further details about the role, including further details of the PhD research envisaged, please contact Rebecca Bell ([email protected] ) and Alex Whittaker ([email protected] )

Closing date: 22nd April 2024

Apply online via the above ‘Apply’ button.