PhD position in the project ‘Plants under stress: decoding mechanisms of plant water use in response to drought and heat across scales’
Left: Lysimeter system at TUM/ Germany. (https://www.tcf.tum.de/ptc/greenhouses-phytochambers/tummesa/ueber-tummesa/) Middle: Rainout shelters at TUM/ Germany. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41348-023-00790-0/) Right: VPD manipulation experiment at the Pfynwald research platform/ Switzerland (https://www.epfl.ch/labs/perl/perl-home/research/vpdrought-a-novel-approach-to-disentangle-atmospheric-and-soil-drought/)
Climate change exposes plants to heat- and drought stress and threatens natural ecosystems and agricultural productivity. To alleviate lethal thermal damage, plants transpire through open stomata. Yet, to limit the water deficit, plants conserve water by closing stomata, creating a trade-off between canopy cooling and water saving. Within this project, you will work within a multidisciplinary team to understand how plants navigate this trade-off under varying environmental conditions. Together with two other PhD students, you will conduct controlled experiments in growth chambers (picture, left), measurements in fields (picture, middle) and forests (picture, right) and learn how to upscale the results in exchange with international experts. Take your chance to make a meaningful contribution towards assessing forests’ climate mitigation potential and addressing issues of food security!
In a nutshell:
Work in the group of Root-Soil Interaction at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Freising/ Germany in collaboration with the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)/ Switzerland.
Be part of a team of 3 PhD students.
Become member of the TUM International Graduate School of Science and Engineering (IGSSE).
Do your PhD as freelance scientist with a lot of flexibilities
What we are looking for in a PhD candidate:
A high level of motivation
The ability to work independently
Endurance
Creativity in terms of problem-solving skills
Background in related fields (e.g., plant physiology/ hydrology, soil physics, biology, agriculture, forestry, geography, …)
Ideally, experience in soil-plant hydraulic measurements.
Please, send a 1-page letter of motivation + CV to tina.koehler@tum.de until 5th of March 2025.
We are looking forward!