Doctorant pour MiningBrines DC: Modélisation du transport réactif à l'échelle des pores pour

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The Paul Scherrer Institute PSI is the largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences within Switzerland. It performs cutting‑edge research in the fields of future technologies, energy and climate, health innovation and fundamentals of nature. By performing fundamental and applied research, PSI works on sustainable solutions for major challenges facing society, science and economy. PSI is committed to training future generations.

Therefore, about one quarter of its staff are post‑docs, post‑graduates or apprentices. Altogether, PSI employs 2,300 people.

The Laboratory for Waste Management has conducted multidisciplinary research on safety and design of geological repositories for radioactive waste and related nuclear reactor technologies. For a Marie Skłodowska–Curie Doctoral Network (MSCA‑DN) project, the following role is requested.

• Implement a Lattice Boltzmann (LB) solver for modelling processes at pore scale in 2D/3D realistic multimineral pore structures (synthetic and tomography driven).
• Develop surrogate models to accelerate simulation of chemistry and couple them with LB.
• Quantify the impact of reactions and microstructural evolution on permeability and transport properties relevant to resource extraction, and derive mechanistic correlations for upscaling.
• Integrate AI/ML‑assisted sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification to evaluate prediction reliability and account for input data variability.

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline.
• Strong motivation for interdisciplinary research.
• Excellent command of spoken and written English (mandatory).

Desirable

Skills:

• Programming skills (e.g. Python or
  
  C). Familiarity with machine learning techniques is a plus.
• Background in porous media flows or CFD. Experience with the lattice Boltzmann would be beneficial.
• Geochemical modelling and reactive transport fundamentals.

You will be enrolled at the University of Bern and receive your PhD title from the University of Bern. This position is part of the Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Action (MSCA) Doctoral Network (DN) “Mining Brines” (Multidisciplinary Integration and Networking for Increased sustainability and multi‑resources valorisation of Geothermal BRINES). You will have the status of a “SERI‑funded MSCA DN Grantee”. As part of the MSCA DN, you will visit the Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Vesuviano (INGV) in Naples, Italy, the Geological and Mining Bureau (BRGM) in Orléans, France, the GFZ Helmholtz‑Zentrum für Geoforschung in Potsdam, Germany and Collaboration Betters the World (CBTW) in Germany for approximately 2 months each.

You will collaborate closely with the other Mining Brines research projects and participate in network training and workshops.

Horizon Europe MSCA Mobility Rule: Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the host organization (Switzerland) for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the recruitment date – unless as part of a compulsory national service or a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention.

Eligibility Criteria: Doctoral Candidates must, at the date of recruitment by the host organization, have not been awarded a doctoral degree. Applicants must be eligible to enroll on a PhD program at University…