GCARE’s Research Fellow In Air Pollution Assessment Of Delhi

Short info about job

Detail information about job GCARE’s Research Fellow In Air Pollution Assessment Of Delhi. Terms and conditions vacancy

Applications are invited from enthusiastic and talented individuals for a post–doctorate research position as a part of a UK-India NERC funded consortium project, ASAP-Delhi: An Integrated Study of Air Pollutant Sources in the Delhi.

The position is available from 16 October 2017 in the area of characterisation and apportionment of air pollution sources in Delhi through field monitoring and statistical modelling. The work will be undertaken at the University of Surrey’s Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) in the UK as  part of Professor Prashant Kumar's research group.

Project background

ASAP-Delhi project is funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) within the UK-India NERC-MOES Programme on Air Quality and Health in Megacity Delhi. This programme is a joint initiative between NERC and the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the UK and the Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences (ESSO-MoES) and Department of Biotechnology in India. The project aims to provide authoritative assessment of the sources, formation process, burden and characteristics of air pollutants in Delhi, and the influence of the surrounding National Capital Region (NCR), with a focus upon particulate matter as the pollutant with the greatest impact upon health, and a philosophy of determining pollutant sources, budget and behaviour insights from direct atmospheric observations.

Our offer

As a part of this project, we offer a challenging full-time position for 28-months from 16 October 2017 in an inspiring multidisciplinary and international environment. You will work in a team of researchers in the UK and India and therefore may need to make short stays to partner institutions for the collaborative field and laboratory investigations work.

Your responsibilities

You will be responsible for planning, designing and performing the field campaigns and collecting primary and secondary data (i) to assess contributions to particulate matter from some of the hitherto overlooked sources such as roadside biomass and municipal solid waste burning, construction and road dust emissions, (ii) perform PM chemical source profiling using the new and available data and (iii) assess the PM import/export between Delhi and NCR/City Clusters by means of field observations, laboratory investigations and advanced statistical modelling techniques. You are expected to analyse and interpret the data for relevant reports, conferences and journal publications, and support the collaborative activities within the programme, as appropriate.

Your profile

We are looking for a researcher with a PhD degree (or near to completion) in the fields of civil, environmental, chemical engineering, atmospheric science, mathematics, physics, chemistry or related engineering/science disciplines. You should have sufficient background knowledge for planning, designing and performing the field experimental campaigns for assessing PM chemical source profiles, source apportionment using CMB and PMF techniques and emission import/export assessment using methods such as Lenschow-type analysis and k-means clustering. You should have skills in handling air pollution instruments, data collection and handling methods, and its subsequent analysis and interpretation using advanced mathematical/statistical and mapping tools such as R, SPSS, MatLab and GIS.

Further Information

For further information and to apply online, please visit click the 'apply' button below. 

Please note, it is University Policy to offer a starting salary equivalent to Level 3.6 (£30,688) to successful applicants who have been awarded, but are yet to receive, their PhD certificate.  Once the original PhD certificate has been submitted to the local HR Department, the salary will be increased to Level 4.1 (£31,604).