Postdoc in Transdisciplinary Digital Twins for Climate-Smart and Health-Safe Cities

Job description

The challenge

Cities worldwide are increasingly implementing Blue-Green Infrastructure and Nature-Based Solutions to address climate-related challenges such as urban heat stress and flooding. While these interventions can improve urban resilience and liveability, they may also introduce new public health risks, including mosquito breeding and vector-borne disease transmission.

The UrbanHealthTwin project addresses this growing urban challenge by developing digital twin approaches for climate-resilient and health-conscious urban planning. The project integrates climate, water, urban, biological, epidemiological, and community knowledge into an explainable digital twin that supports evidence-based climate adaptation decisions in São Paulo and Rotterdam.

Your role

As postdoctoral researcher, you will lead the development of the UrbanHealthTwin digital twin platform, integrating climate, hydrological, epidemiological, biological, and urban-system models into an interactive and explainable decision-support environment for climate adaptation and public health planning.

You will coordinate digital twin activities across the wider international consortium and help ensure that the platform aligns with both scientific objectives and practical stakeholder needs. You will also investigate existing digital twin initiatives in Rotterdam and explore opportunities to connect and build upon ongoing city-scale developments.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the UrbanHealthTwin project and work package on Digital Twin for Urban Climate and Health Risk Integration.
• Develop knowledge-graph-based approaches for integrating heterogeneous datasets and models.
• Support simulation orchestration across hydrological, urban climate, epidemiological, and urban-system models.
• Design interactive and explainable digital twin interfaces for policymakers, planners, public health professionals, and community stakeholders.
• Translate complex model outputs into accessible insights for scenario-based climate adaptation decision-making.
• Support the integration of probabilistic exposure and risk maps into digital twin workflows.
• Contribute to case studies involving urban heat islands, waterlogging risks, mosquito breeding risks, and climate adaptation scenarios.
• Train and support project stakeholders in digital twin concepts, tools, workflows, and interfaces.
• Collaborate closely with academic and societal partners in the Netherlands and Brazil.
• Contribute to scientific publications, prototypes, and project deliverables.

Environment and collaboration

The successful candidate will work within the Integral Design and Management Section of the 3MD Department, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, TU Delft, and will be associated with the DigiConstruct Lab.

The project brings together researchers and stakeholders from TU Delft, Leiden University, University of Groningen, institutions in São Paulo, and a broader network of urban and public health partners. The role offers opportunities to lead digital twin development, coordinate an international research work package, collaborate with urban and public health stakeholders, and contribute to prototypes, case studies, publications, and scientific outputs.

Job requirements

We are looking for a candidate with strong computational and interdisciplinary research skills, and an interest in climate adaptation and urban health challenges. You:

• Hold a PhD, or are close to completing a PhD, in a relevant field such as Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Geomatics, Civil or Environmental Engineering, Urban Systems, Climate Adaptation, or a related discipline.
• Have experience with digital twins, geospatial modelling, simulation workflows, semantic data integration, urban analytics, or decision-support systems.
• Have strong programming skills, preferably in Python and/or JavaScript.
• Are comfortable working with geospatial and heterogeneous datasets.
• Have experience with GIS and spatial data processing, including geospatial datasets, map layers, or web-based mapping tools.
• Enjoy collaborating across disciplines and working with researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders.
• Communicate clearly in English and can explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Are willing to travel to São Paulo for an extended research stay and collaborate closely with Brazilian project partners.
• Are motivated to work in an international and transdisciplinary research environment.

Experience with knowledge graphs, semantic web technologies, web development, urban climate modelling, epidemiological modelling, FAIR data principles, or climate-risk mapping is considered an advantage.

TU Delft as employer

TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design to address challenges in energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. The university offers an international environment where research, innovation and societal impact are closely connected.

Conditions of employment

• Duration of contract is 24 months. Temporary.
• An excellent pension scheme via the ABP.
• The possibility to compile an individual employment package every year.
• Discount with health insurers on supplemental packages.
• Flexible working week.
• Every year, 232 leave hours at 38 hours, with the option to sell or buy additional leave hours via the individual choice budget.
• Plenty of opportunities for education, training and courses.
• Partially paid parental leave.
• Attention for working healthy and energetically with the vitality program.
• Support for relocation to the Netherlands, including services to help you prepare your move and settle in Delft.
• A Dual Career Programme is available to support an accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.