PhD: Decode Environmental History with Living Micro-Sensors

Delft; Delft; On-site; EUR 27,000 - 36,000; Full time

Job summary

TU Delft invites applications for a PhD position focused on decoding environmental history encoded by living microorganisms. The project bridges biodesign, machine learning, and interaction design within Sustainable Design Engineering, to advance living sensing and memory systems.

You will cultivate organisms, model their visible responses, and develop decoders to recover environmental history from imagery, with opportunities to prototype compostable sensor systems for real-world monitoring.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in CS/EE/Biodesign or related field.
• Experience in building and deploying ML or computer vision models.
• Experience or strong interest in biodesign and hands-on interaction with living organisms.
• Ability to work in a multidisciplinary team, communicate effectively, and take initiative.

Responsibilities

• Cultivate the living organism, characterize and model its visible responses to different environmental conditions.
• Develop and validate computational decoders that recover environmental history from an image of the living organism.
• Design prototypes that incorporate living sensors, such as compostable, smart packaging for temperature/humidity monitoring.

Skills

ML / computer vision

Biodesign / bio-digital systems

Education

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Biodesign, Design Engineering, or related field

Job description

TU Delft invites applications for a PhD position focused on decoding environmental history encoded by living microorganisms. The project bridges biodesign, machine learning, and interaction design within Sustainable Design Engineering, to advance living sensing and memory systems.

You will cultivate organisms, model their visible responses, and develop decoders to recover environmental history from imagery, with opportunities to prototype compostable sensor systems for real-world monitoring.