PHD RESEARCH FELLOW IN CHEMINFORMATICS AND MOLECULAR DESIGN

There is a vacancy for a PhD position in cheminformatics and molecular design at Department of Chemistry . The position is allocated to an interdisciplinary project within energy transition funded by the University of Bergen and involves close collaboration, and co-supervision of the PhD student, between Department of Chemistry and Department of Department of Informatics. The position is for a fixed-term period of 3 years with the possibility of a 4th year with compulsory other work (e.g., teaching duties).

About the project/work tasks

The project group develops leading cheminformatics-based methods for molecular design, in which molecules are evolved to exhibit desired properties using evolutionary algorithms. Working at the interface between chemistry and informatics, the PhD student will add specific new capabilities to these design methods and, among other things, draw upon concepts of machine learning (a project-group strength) to improve convergence toward molecules with superior properties and principles of software design (another project-group strength) to implement the new capabilities in effective computer programs.

The PhD student will also use the new methods and programs to predict new catalysts for transformation of nitrogen and water to ammonia. Ammonia is the basis for the fertilizer production on which much of the world’s food supply relies and is also a very promising carbon-free energy carrier projected to help reduce CO2 emissions in particular in the transport sector. The project will help realize this potential by identifying catalysts for a water-based, benign, and sustainable ammonia production process that could replace the current energy-intensive and CO2 -emitting production process (Haber-Bosch).

A more detailed description of the position is available.