The Department of Chemistry, University of Bergen, Norway, has a vacancy for a PhD student, for at least 3 and up to 4 years, in cheminformatics and molecular design. 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 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).
The project group develops leading cheminformatics-based methods for molecular design, in which molecules are evolved to exhibit desired properties using evolutionary algorithms. These methods and programs are described in a series of articles:
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).
In summary, we are looking for a candidate with the right background and motivation for both cheminformatics-based method development and programming, and application of the new methods in computational molecular design.
The project involves close collaboration between Department of Chemistry and Department Informatics. The PhD student will benefit from a strong team of supervisors covering all aspects of the project, ranging from informatics, machine learning, and software design, to cheminformatics, molecular design, and catalysis (the field of application):
Salary at pay grade 54 (Code 1017/Pay range 20, alternative 10) in the state salary scale. This constitutes a gross annual salary of NOK 491 200 (currently ca. USD 56 600, or ca. EUR 48 300). Further promotions are made according to length of service in the position.
For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Professor Vidar R. Jensen, (Department of Chemistry, phone +47-55583489/ e-mail Vidar.Jensen@uib.no), or Assoc. Prof. David Grellscheid (Department of Informatics, phone +47-55584147/ e-mail David.Grellscheid@uib.no).