Patience Cowie Research Fellow

Contract type - Fixed term - 36 months

Full time - 35 hours per week

The opportunity

The School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh is pleased to invite applications for two 2024 Patience Cowie Fellowships. The Fellowships are fixed term for 36 months.

We welcome applications from all qualified candidates, and wish to particularly encourage applications from under-represented backgrounds in their research area, e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, disadvantaged circumstances, etc. The candidate should have completed a PhD in the fields and disciplines represented by the institutes in our School (www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences/research/institutes-centres/institutes ), or in another relevant field, and should be able to demonstrate the potential for independent research and a future academic career. The Fellowship aims to provide a supportive and collegial environment for early-career researchers, including mentorship and career development support that allows them to develop their research (e.g. publications from both existing research and new, independent research in the candidate’s area of interest). The Fellowship will support the candidate in preparing themselves for submissions to major external fellowship schemes and future independent roles in academia and beyond. 

While open to all the fields and disciplines covered in our School, the Patience Cowie Fellowships honour the memory of Professor Patience Anne Cowie (27 January 1964 – 7 April 2020), who championed women in science and diversity in the school of GeoSciences. Patience Cowie was a Professor of Geodynamics at the University of Edinburgh before moving to University of Bergen as Professor of Earth System Dynamics. She conducted seminal work on the growth and propagation of faults and developed new approaches to quantify the interaction between faulting and landscape evolution in time and space. She was awarded the 2016 Geological Society of London Coke medal), where her citation includes: "Patience Cowie, you are an inspirational and far-sighted geoscientist, who has revolutionized our understanding of the growth and interaction of faults". She was one of the first female professors in the School of GeoSciences and a champion and enthusiastic supporter for female researchers. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_Cowie )

This post is full-time (35 hours per week), however, we are open to considering part-time or flexible working patterns. We are also open to considering requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working.