PhD Student

Your personal sphere of influence:

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) "Magnetic Soft Matter for Robotics" (MAESTRI, Grant ID 101119614) is an interdisciplinary research training network involving 7 universities and 2 companies from 5 countries. It is funded under the "first pillar" of the Horizon Europe program called "Excellent Science". MSCA-DN MAESTRI addresses the need for training a new kind of expert in the emerging application field of magnetic soft robotics, which we believe will lead to groundbreaking technologies in the near future. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration among specialists from various fields, including Materials Science, Biology, Physics, and Engineering Science.
https://maestri-project.eu/

You will be working in the Dipolar Soft Matter group at the Faculty of Physics with the objective of developing robust and predictive simulation approaches that enable accurate magneto-mechanical coupling for modeling magnetic elastomers. The aim is to gain a fundamental understanding of the interplay between magnetic particle shape, concentration, embedding techniques, and the magneto-mechanical responses of elastomers.
As part of the Doctoral Network, you will actively collaborate with other nodes, particularly through secondments to Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg to gain complementary expertise on materials for control design and experimentation, and to the University of Ljubljana to acquire expertise in materials characterization and optical feedback concepts. To gain exposure to the industrial implementation of magnetic elastomers, an extended stay at Prensilia — a spin-off company of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, with extensive experience in designing and developing multi-articulated grippers — is also planned.

Your future tasks:

• develop, implement, test and employ a coarse-grained, bead-spring-based approach to simulate both bulk and semi-finite samples of magnetic elastomers with predefined compressibility.
• perform extensive simulation, aiming at establishing the relationship between internal structure of the elastomer and its mechanical response with particular emphasis on the elastomer free surface deformation.
• Presentation of research activities at international conferences
• Publications of research papers

This is part of your personality:

• Completed Master studies in physics or related disciplines (applied mathematics, physical chemistry or theoretical/computational chemistry)
• Knowledge of statistical physics and classical mechanics
• Excellent command in written and oral English (C1)
• Team player and high social/communicative skills
• Experience in computer simulations of soft condensed matter is a strong requirement

What we offer:

Work-life balance: Our employees enjoy flexible working hours, remote/hybrid and/or part-time work (upon agreement).

Inspiring working atmosphere: You are a part of an international academic team in a healthy and fair working environment.

Good public transport connections: Your workplace in the center of beautiful Vienna is easily accessible by public transport.

Internal further training & Coaching: Opportunity to deepen your skills on an ongoing basis. There are over 600 courses to choose from – free of charge.

Fixed-term contract and fair salary: The basic salary of approximately EUR 3.578,80 (14 times a year).

Equal opportunities for everyone: We look forward to diverse personalities in the team!

It is that easy to apply:

To apply for this position, kindly provide:

• a letter of motivation including a 1-page statement of your research interests, relevant skills and experience;
• a CV (Europass model mandatory) including publication list (if publications are available);
• copies of relevant certificates and
• names and contact details of at least two referees willing to write confidential letters of recommendation.

Attach all application documents to an email message as a single PDF file (maximum size 5 MB).
To be considered for this position, please send your complete application with the tag DC5 in the subject line to our recruitment email address

application.maestri.physik@univie.ac.at

(Please do not use any additional text in the subject line of your email except DC5.)