Applicants are invited for a PhD fellowship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Ecoscience programme.
The position is available from 1 August 2024 or later.
You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.

Title:
A sound marine environment: Awareness and solutions to underwater noise from ships and small boats

Research area and project description:
What do human activities at sea do to marine soundscapes and how are marine mammals affected by such anthropogenic noise? To answer these questions, we are inviting strong candidates for two Ph.D.
projects funded by Aage V.
Jensen’s Naturfond: ‘A sound marine environment’ to start in the autumn of 2024.
The two PhD candidates are expected to work closely together on a common project that will measure and model the underwater soundscape in the Bay of Aarhus, Denmark, and quantify the effects of vessel noise on the distribution and behaviour of harbour porpoises.

The candidates will use passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) of ship noise and harbour porpoises at a number of stations placed in Aarhus Bay in concert with soundscape modelling of ship noise.
These studies will be complemented with investigations of how individual porpoises react to ships and boats using sound and movement recording tags.
The work will be divided with one Ph.D.
project focusing on large ships and one with focus on small recreational vessels.
Dissemination of the research findings involves peer-reviewed publications firs-authored by the candidates and a strong outreach component, involving stakeholder engagement, information to the public and citizen science.

The project has the ambition to deliver strong results that can support a science-based management of marine habitats in Bay of Aarhus and beyond.
General information about the project can be found at the project website oceannoise.dk.

The PhD project on large vessels will be supervised by Professor Jakob Tougaard at the Department of Ecoscience and the PhD project on smaller vessels will be supervised by Professor Peter T.
Madsen at the Department of Biology.
The two research groups are physically co-located and completely integrated in the daily life, ensuring a close collaboration between the two PhD projects.
For technical reasons, applicants are asked to apply to this call at both graduate schools (GSTS and GSNS).
If you have a preference for one of the two PhD projects (larger vessels or recreational boats) you can indicate this in the application and elaborate on why in your cover letter.

Project description
For technical reasons, you must upload a project description.
Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.

Qualifications and specific competences:
Applicants must have a relevant Master’s degree (120 ECTS) in Bioacoustics, Engineering, Physics or similar fields and a strong interest in acoustics and the effects of sound on marine organisms.
It is an advantage to have documented experience with quantitative data analysis on large data sets with Matlab, R, Python, or similar software.

Good collaborative skills are required, and you are expected to contribute fully to the large, diverse, and highly active bioacoustics research group that you will become part of.

We also expect you to be able to communicate eloquently in both written and oral English.

Place of employment and place of work:
The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is Department of Ecoscience, C.F.
Møller’s Allé 3, Building 1131, 8000 Aarhus C

Contacts:
Applicants seeking further information are invited to contact:

• Jakob Tougaard, jat@ecos.au.dk (main supervisor)
• Peter T.
  Madsen, peter.madsen@bio.au.dk (co-supervisor)

How to apply:
Please follow this link to submit your application.

Application deadline is 1 May 2024 at 23:59 CEST.

Preferred starting date is 1 August 2024.

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide.

Please note:

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated.
  Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be taken into account.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop.
We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.
All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.

 

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