Description

In 2021 and 2022 the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources, provides three international postdoctoral fellowships for five months to support researchers who work in material sciences. The first one takes place between October 2021 and March 2022.
The subject of the fellowship are to be material sciences research data and specimen collections with conservation issues. The targeted use of a newly acquired Raman spectrometer and corresponding method development can also form the focus of the 
fellowship. A more detailed plan of activities will be made in personal consultation with the fellow.

Above all, the fellowships are intended to complement the current research activities of the Materials Science Department. These include, among others:

• Analysis of organic materials of culturally and historically important objects by means 
  of spectroscopic and chromatographic methods of analysis; focus on polymeric 
  materials
• Degradation processes and long-term stability of organic materials in museum 
  objects, primarily made of plastics
• Preventive conservation/conservation methods/reversibility of conservation 
  measures

The fellow has the opportunity to use the research infrastructure at the materials science laboratory with analytical devices (HS-GCMS, PY-GCMS, EGA-MS, FTIR, SEM, XRD, IC, pXRF). Also the Conservation Section and the Montanhistorische Dokumentationszentrum (montan.dok) including the records of the Mining Archive Bochum but also the collections,
library and photo library may support the scientific work. The museum cooperates with the Department of Applied Material Sciences at the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences in Bochum (THGA), making the resources there available to the scientist as a guest.

Requirements

Successful applicants need to have a PhD degree in conservation science, materials science, chemistry or related disciplines. Foreign candidates are explicit welcome to apply. Reapplication is permitted.

The fellowship will be awarded for five months and is funded with a grant of 1,700 Euros per month, wich includes expenses for travel and accomodation. A hiatus of up to four weeks is possible once. 

Please send in your application - in English or German - by September 15th, 2021 including the following documents as a single PDF (max. 2 MB!) only by mail to till.krieg@bergbaumuseum.de:
- curriculum vitae
- publication list
- short project proposal (max. 5 pages)

Please let us know if the estimated period seems suitable for you or if adjustments would have to be made together.