PhD Position GreenCare4Health. Green Interventions for Heat-Resilience: Design and Evaluation

Challenge: Mitigate urban heat risks

Change: Co-design green interventions from the Netherlands to Brazil
Impact: Empowered school communities and healthier, climate-adaptive neighborhoods

PhD position: GreenCare4Health — Green Interventions for Heat-Resilience (Design and Evaluation)

Job description

Are you passionate about using urban design to address the pressing health challenges posed by climate change? In this PhD project, you will be a key researcher in the international project GreenCare4Health, working at the intersection of urbanism, microclimate, and public health. Your primary focus will be on co-designing and evaluating green interventions to reduce heat-related health risks in dense, socially vulnerable urban areas. You will develop and test a Health-Heat (HH) toolkit, an instrument combining spatial design guidelines, participatory methods, and evaluation metrics to support school communities in re-naturalizing their yards and maintaining these spaces as “green commons”. The toolkit will be tested and refined through Urban Living Labs in close collaboration with a multidisciplinary team.

A central part of your role involves conducting multidimensional evaluations of these interventions. This includes assessing microclimate performance (e.g., temperature reduction, shading), health and wellbeing outcomes, and patterns of use and stewardship. You will work closely with researchers collecting health and climate data in pilot schools, ensuring that design solutions are evidence-based, context-sensitive, and impactful.

Your role in the team

We welcome candidates who are enthusiastic about the goals and approach of GreenCare4Health. You will be part of a vibrant, transdisciplinary consortium including partners from the Netherlands and Brazil. You will be hired by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft and supervised by a dedicated team: Dr. Deepti Adlakha, Dr. Víctor Muñoz Sanz, and Dr. Daniela Maiullari.

This position is inherently collaborative. Rather than working in isolation, you will contribute to a larger interdisciplinary research programme, engaging with researchers, professional staff, and societal partners across contexts. At the same time, you will develop your own PhD trajectory within this framework, shaping research questions and contributing to academic outputs.

A unique aspect of this position is the opportunity to spend at least three months in São Paulo, Brazil, supporting the implementation of a pilot intervention in the Heliópolis neighborhood.

Collaboration is integral to this role. While your core tasks focus on design and evaluation, you will interact daily with experts in environmental health and urbanism. We are therefore looking for candidates who value teamwork, are open to interdisciplinary collaboration, and are motivated to contribute to meaningful societal impact.

Job requirements

Need-to-have:

• A Master’s degree in Urbanism, Landscape Architecture, Architecture, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience or strong interest in collaborative projects, co-design, participatory methods, or Urban Living Labs.
• Proficiency in spatial modeling and/or microclimate analysis tools (e.g., ENVI-met, GIS).
• Excellent command of written and spoken English.
• Willingness to conduct extended research visits to Brazil.
• Ability to work effectively in a multidisciplinary, international team.

Nice-to-have:

• Previous academic experience (e.g., collaboration in research projects, and/or publications).
• Affinity with Global South contexts.
• Working knowledge of Portuguese (for the Brazil stay) and of Dutch.
• Experience with health-related urban research or environmental psychology.

• The anticipated start date is November 2026, or as soon as possible thereafter. Candidates should be available to start around this date.
• We do not expect any individual candidate to possess all the listed skills. Such a profile does not exist. However, we do expect candidates to provide evidence for the expertise they claim — for example through publications, research projects, presentations, or other activities. Here again we do not expect long lists of proof of your expertise.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)

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.

Faculty Architecture & the Built Environment

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment has a leading role in education and research worldwide. Staff and students work to improve the built environment with the help of a broad set of disciplines, including architectural design, urban planning, building technology, social sciences, process management, and geo-information science. The faculty works closely with other faculties, universities, private parties, and the public sector, and has an extensive network in the Netherlands as well as internationally.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1.5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months, followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2.5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

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.