Postdoctoral Research Associate

Department: School of Geography
Salary: £40,223 per annum (Grade 4)
Reference: 1463
Location: Mile End
Date posted: 12 March 2024
Closing date: 9 April 2024

Further details and apply

About the Role

The Earth Surface Science group at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) are seeking a postdoc in paleoceanography and paleoclimatology to work on a NERC and NSF-funded project ‘Pliocene Lessons for the Indian Ocean Dipole (PLIOD)’.

The PLIOD project is a collaboration between QMUL’s School of Geography, University College London and University of Arizona (USA). The aim of the project is to use the marine sediment archive and climate models to investigate Indian Ocean dynamics during a globally warm climate state three million years ago—the mid-Pliocene warm period. Our proposed paleodata will be used to evaluate climate model dynamics, constrain mechanisms, and advance our understanding of the Indian Ocean mean state and variability.

The major task for this postdoc is to reconstruct sea surface and subsurface and deep ocean conditions from marine sediment cores from the Indian Ocean. This project uses material from the International Ocean Discovery Program and its previous iterations.

About You

The PDRA will:

• Prepare sediment samples including washing and picking for planktic and benthic foraminifera
• Geochemically analyze foraminifera for stable isotopes and/or minor elements
• Analyze datasets emerging from the PLIOD project to understand the spatial and temporal mean state and variability in the Indian Ocean
• Prepare results for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals (as lead author and co-author).

The PDRA will be embedded into a multidisciplinary team of paleoceanographers, geochemists and climate modelers and thus develop an interdisciplinary skill set.

About the School/Department/Institute/Project

The School of Geography at Queen Mary University of London is internationally recognized for its theoretically informed, empirically grounded and politically engaged research, and remains one of the top departments for Geography and Environmental Sciences in the UK (REF 2014).

About Queen Mary

At Queen Mary University of London, we believe that a diversity of ideas helps us achieve the previously unthinkable.

Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to live and breathe this spirit today, not because it’s simply ‘the right thing to do’ but for what it helps us achieve and the intellectual brilliance it delivers.

We continue to embrace diversity of thought and opinion in everything we do, in the belief that when views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes form.

Benefits

We offer competitive salaries, access to a generous pension scheme, 30 days’ leave per annum (pro-rata for part-time/fixed-term), a season ticket loan scheme and access to a comprehensive range of personal and professional development opportunities. In addition, we offer a range of work life balance and family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, and campus facilities including an on-site nursery at the Mile End campus.

Queen Mary’s commitment to our diverse and inclusive community is embedded in our appointments processes. Reasonable adjustments will be made at each stage of the recruitment process for any candidate with a disability. We are open to considering applications from candidates wishing to work flexibly.

Further details and apply