The scholarship is founded by the Kempe Foundations. The Tax-free scholarship amounts to 700,000 SEK each (approximately 29,166 SEK per month) and is typically paid out in four separate instalments during the scholarship period. The last day to apply is February 28, 2025.
Departmental specific information
The Environmental Archaeology Laboratory at the department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Umeå University is a national infrastructure conducting and supporting contract research in connection to cultural- and environmental conservation and research in Archaeology. As a research group we cover a broad range of analytical approaches from biology to chemistry and spectroscopy. More information: https://www.umu.se/en/research/infrastructure/mal/spectroscopy/
The national NMR Core facility, located at the Department of Chemistry at Umeå University, is one of the European leading infrastructures providing state-of-the-art spectrometers up to 850 MHz for cutting-edge liquid and solid-state NMR applications. The facility offers NMR analysis of a wide variety of samples service areas range from life science to small molecules, novel material, analysis of complex, heterogenous material like biopsies, soils and environmental and archaeological samples. The NMR facility is part of the national infrastructures SciLifeLab, SwedNMR and the Swedish NMR Centre SNC.
Human biomass manipulati0n and charcoal production in time and space have played an important role in human prehistory. The ways of analysing carbon and charred materials in real world scenarios are plentiful but there is always room for development. The main objective of this projects is to develop a robust multi-mode spectroscopy toolbox to analyse on-site with high spatial resolution as entire areas of interest providing in-situ information for probing interesting spots for further in detail analysis in the lab. Humans have for a very long-time exploited forest resources for generating heat and building material but also converted those resources into valuable material to improve their daily living and drive societal development. Later on in prehistory, one of those and most influential material is charcoal, which together with other carbon based bi-products has been produced intentionally for specific purposes, especially as long as metal working has been a driving part of human technological progress.
Charred material is resistant to decay and can be preserved under beneficial circumstances for very long time because of mineralisation. For instance, in sediments on Stone Age sites to present day, we find charred material in various forms preserved in the sediments and the shape is depending on formation and taphonomy of the material. However, charcoal/charred matters have been of interest but not used to the full potential even though it can be regarded a mass material and thus holds a lot of potential information and holds an interest particularly to environmental sciences and archaeology.
Analytical spectroscopic techniques are constantly improving, and as black carbon has been a challenging matter to approach, a combination of techniques is needed. We want to combine several of the analytical techniques available at Umeå University and have them applied to charred materials and their surroundings matrixes. In order to do this, we would like to have two postdoctoral fellows that can work parallel on the same type of material but using different approaches. The first postdoctoral fellow position will focus on Near Infrared (NIR)- Imaging and probing techniques, Raman- and FTIR spectroscopy and the second postdoctoral fellows position will focus on Nuclear magnetic Resonance (NMR). The strength of these two postdoctoral fellow approaches is that one technique is rarely enough to solve complex problems of this kind and there are synergetic effects to gain by having two researchers cooperate side by side focused on the project. Furthermore, they will be able contribute to several different research environments and develop cooperations both with individual researcher as with different research structures.
In the broader perspective this will improve the toolbox to be used in Biomass technology, understanding molecular cycles in different large-scale systems and related processes in soils and sediments and adding to the understanding of the carbon cycle and how humans have impacted this over time.
Qualifications
To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree within chemistry, archaeological science, geoarchaeology or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirement must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient.
Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior to the application deadline. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree before that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organizations, military service, or similar circumstances as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.
Experience in doctoral programs or professional life, required in one or more of the following areas:
Organic chemistry
Spectroscopy such as Near Infrared, FTIR, Raman, XRF and NMR
Chemometrics
Wood anatomy
Pyrolysis-biomass
We are looking for candidates who are prepared and interested to work in interdisciplinary research and to broaden their horizons. The two postdoctoral fellows will work parallel and interdisciplinary to integrate research results, so cooperation skills are essential.
Fluency in English, both spoken and written, is a requirement
Application
The application must be written in English or Swedish, and attached documents must be in Word or PDF format. The application must be submitted via Umeå University’s e-recruitment system Varbi no later than February 28, 2025.
A full application must include:
Cover letter in which you describe your background and motivation for your interest in this scholarship
CV with publication list
Copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained
Copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades
Copy of doctoral thesis and up to four of relevant articles
Contact information to two persons willing to act as references
Further information
Further details on the scholarship and the project can be provided by associate professor Johan Linderholm, johan.linderholm@umu.se or by Professor Gerhard Gröbner, gerhard.grobner@umu.se
