Job description

The University of Sheffield is seeking to appoint a talented and highly motivated Research Associate to create and deploy knowledge to reshape the regional transport within the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre. Transport is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, accounting for 27% of the total, and most journeys made via private cars are shorter than 5 miles. This is unsustainable for our cities which become less and less liveable, for our environment which becomes more and more polluted, and for our economy, wasting resources in the costs of congestion. Your work will address and help solve the problem with a quantitative approach, shaping policy-making in South Yorkshire.

The ideal candidate will have a PhD (or be about to submit your thesis) or have equivalent industrial experience in one of the engineering, physical or mathematical sciences. Ability to synthesize network models from observation and data is essential as well as an understanding of transport and mobility. Your communication skills will be central in making sure your work will reach policy-makers and the research community via research outputs.

If you are a modeller willing to use your skills to make an impact in policy making or you are passionate about making our society more sustainable and keen on providing quantitative evidence on how to do so, then we would love to hear from you.

In your role you will develop a unified platform for urban mobility, incorporating the demand for transport, the data from our live sensors and various datasets from our stakeholders, from both local authorities and private companies. You will build a data-driven network model to include private mobility and public transport to enable scenario analysis for the spread of active and sustainable travel. You will be responsible for the development and compilation and crossing of datasets related to population and vehicle usage, as well as measurements of the emissions and their future projection in the scenario analysis. You will work in a heterogenous team of researchers across 3 faculties and 2 Universities in Sheffield and interact constantly with our partners and stakeholders within the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to co-create your model. The role will include opportunities to present at conferences, co-supervise masters dissertation projects, collaborate with international researchers, and to work with regional partners to ensure results can be quickly transferred into practice.

The role is a full-time post predominantly based in Sheffield, but we are committed to exploring flexible working opportunities with our staff which benefit both the individual and the University. If you wish to explore flexible working opportunities in relation to this post, we encourage you to call or email the departmental contact listed.

We are one of the best not-for-profit organisations to work for in the UK. The University’s Total Reward Package includes a competitive salary, a generous Pension Scheme and annual leave entitlement, as well as access to a range of learning and development courses to support your personal and professional development.

We build teams of people from different heritages and lifestyles from across the world, whose talent and contributions complement each other to greatest effect. We believe diversity in all its forms delivers greater impact through research, teaching and student experience.

To find out what makes the University of Sheffield a remarkable place to work, watch this short film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LblLk18zmo, and follow @sheffielduni and @ShefUniJobs on Twitter for more information.

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