PhD Position Joint Motion Monitoring Devices for Home Environments

Are you passionate about shaping the future of healthcare? Do you want to develop technology that truly matters in people’s lives? Join us in creating radical innovations that enable patients to manage their disease at home.

The Department of Sustainable Design Engineering in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and the Department of Biomechanical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, are seeking a hardworking and motivated PhD candidate to join a full-time, fully funded, 4-year project. You will be supervised by prof. K.M.B. Jansen and dr. G. Smit.

Job description

The Challenge

Healthcare systems worldwide face a dual and growing challenge: costs are rising while the availability of healthcare professionals is decreasing. At the same time, millions of people with chronic mobility conditions—such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Stroke, and Parkinson’s Disease—struggle to maintain independence in their daily lives. New approaches are needed to bridge the gap between hospital-based care and remote patient management.

These developments are part of the Care is coming home! program, which will run over the next 5 years through a large consortium of technical universities, hospitals, companies, a rehabilitation centre, and patient organisations.

As a PhD candidate in this project, you will contribute to a multidisciplinary research effort focused on empowering individuals with chronic mobility limitations. You will help design, develop, and evaluate innovative medical technology that enables people to manage their health at home—safely, independently, and with confidence.

More specifically, this position aims to develop novel measurement devices for monitoring joint motion in chronically ill patients in home environments, enabling quantitative assessment of disease progression.

• For rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, you will develop a finger stiffness measurement device to assess finger joint dexterity.
• For stroke patients, you will develop a drift compensation algorithm for combined IMU and stretch sensor configurations to unobtrusively assess changes in joint movement without relying on cameras.

In this project, you will collaborate in particular with Erasmus MC, ReumaNederland and Madglove.

Job requirements

Your profile

• You hold a master’s degree in biomechanics design, biomechanical engineering or equivalent.
• You have proven skills in prototyping and testing, as well as dynamics and programming.
• You have affinity with electronics.
• You have high-level analytical and organizational skills.
• You have a strong interest in medical technology.
• You have affinity with teaching, as you will spend some time on educational tasks.
• You are fluent in English, both spoken and written. For working with patients, knowledge of Dutch is a pre.
• You have affinity for working with patients and clinicians.

TU Delft as an employer

Delft University of Technology is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world-class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society.

As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, in the form of two employment contracts: an initial 1.5-year contract with an official go/no-go progress assessment within 15 months, followed by an additional 2.5-year contract assuming performance requirements are met.

If relocation to the Netherlands is needed, TU Delft offers support to help make the move as smooth as possible, including relocation information, events to help you settle in Delft, and a Dual Career Programme to support an accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.