25 Funded PhD Programs at ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

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Are you looking to take your education and career to the next level? Do you have a passion for research and a desire to make meaningful contributions to your field of study? If so, a Postdoctoral Fellowships may be the perfect choice for you.

Attention all aspiring scholars and researchers! The ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland is accepting applications for our prestigious funded PhD programs. Apply to the ETH Zurich’s PhD program today and take the first step towards a rewarding and fulfilling academic career.

1. PhD Program in field of literature as part of an SNSF project

About PhD Position

The SNSF project «Cryptophilology. Jonas Fränkel’s ‘underground science’ in a historical and political context»based on the estate and library of the Jewish scholar and literary scholar Jonas Fränkel (1879-1965). As a patron of Carl Spitteler and publisher of Gottfried Keller, he was excluded from 1933 at the same time as anti-Semitic tendencies in his scientific work. Fränkel’s estate not only includes numerous manuscripts and important correspondence (among others with Spitteler, Adolf Loosli, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin). His extensive scholarly library, which also functions as a crypto archive, has also been preserved: many of the books contain inserts such as letters and articles as well as underlinings and marginal notes. The library is an integral part of Fränkel’s philological work, and therefore also part of the archive and project.

Application Deadline: May 29, 2023

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2. PhD Program in Computational Design Methods for Sustainable Design

About PhD Position

With the global urgency to reduce the environmental footprint of all engineered products and systems, you will investigate the development of novel, computational methods to explore solution spaces and find new solutions. A variety of application areas will be investigated including consumer products, machine design and structures. The position also involves teaching assistance in the areas of engineering design, product development and CAD.

Application Deadline: June 2, 2023

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3. PhD Program in automatically detecting de-energized overhead lines

About PhD Position

We are looking for outstanding, highly motivated people interested in pursuing PhD research on new concepts for automatically detecting if overhead lines for electric locomotives or trucks are energized. In railway grids with a high level of electrification for reducing CO2 emission, there are always also areas without electrification, e.g. for shunting/loading. For operating locomotives in both areas, the pantograph connecting the locomotive to the overhead line must be operated properly at transition points between energized and de-energized areas to avoid costly damage to the pantograph/overhead line and the related outages of locomotives.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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4. PhD Program in Application of Large Language Models in Marketing

About PhD Position

The Chair of Technology Marketing is looking for highly motivated PhD and Postdoc candidates who want to conduct marketing research involving Large Language Models. Recent breakthrough developments in Large Language Models have rapidly become a cultural sensation and will have a substantial impact on our societies in the years to come. Applications in this domain, such as ChatGPT, are emerging as the fastest growing consumer applications of all time. This development gives rise to a multitude of scientific questions but also methods that are relevant for research in the field of marketing.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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5. PhD Program in Re-engineering informal construction through circular practices and models

About PhD Position

This PhD position on circular practices in informal construction is at the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture (CEA) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and will be conducted in coordination with the Housing unit (School of Built Environment and Development Studies), at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We are seeking a highly motivated and qualified PhD researcher to join our team working on developing material passports for low-income economies in the context of re-engineering informal construction through circular practices and models. You will be responsible for conducting research and developing methodologies for the creation and implementation of material passports in South African vulnerable communities.

Application Deadline: 30.06.2023

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PhD Career: What are the Career Option?

6. PhD Program in device engineering for efficient microhistology

About PhD Position

Microtissues, including organoids and spheroids, are transforming biological research, drug discovery, and personalized medicine. Histological analysis of microtissues currently allows us to decipher disease mechanisms and identify potential therapeutic molecules for cancer patients. However, the histology of these models remains highly inefficient, wasteful, time intensive, and costly as it is difficult to position heterogeneous and complex microtissues for efficient processing. This project aims to address this limitation by the use of acoustofluidics for positioning microtissues within a gel embedding medium. We will develop a device to carry out the positioning of the microtissues as well as an associated labware needed to streamline the process and integrate it within existing histology workflows.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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7. PhD Program in Geobiology and Microbiology of Extreme Environments

About PhD Position

The PhD project will investigate how seismic activity and oxidative stress affect subsurface microbial and viral communities. For this position you have a strong background in either geobiology, environmental microbiology and/or computational biology (or related subjects) and are interested in microbial evolution and extreme environments. This project includes experimental and computational components including microbial enrichment experiments, underground field experiments at the Bedretto Underground Lab’s Deep Life Observatory and metagenomic/ metatranscriptomic/ metaproteomic analysis.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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8. PhD Program in Multiscale response of skin to mechanical stressors

About PhD Position

This project is part of a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort involving researchers in cell biology, skin mechanics, and biomaterials to bring new understanding of tissue-level response to mechanical stressors, and translate this to clinical applications. The doctoral student in the Tibbitt group will focus on the fabrication, characterization, and implementation of 3D biomaterials that represent a physiologically- and mechanically-relevant models of dermal skin tissue, and their integration in bioreactors, as well as characterization of the biological response. The goal is to have 3D in vitro system to mimic the ex vivo conditions and to control each of the physical state variables of the cell microenvironment in vitro.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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9. PhD Program in nutritional breath metabolomics

About PhD Position

Food intolerances are a major cause of functional gastrointestinal disorders, and while they can be managed by dietary intervention, correct diagnosis is essential for effective treatment. This interdisciplinary project will investigate the molecular composition of human exhaled breath as a potential source of biomarkers reporting on the clinical traits associated with lactose malabsorption (LM) (Lactobreath profiles) as a proof-of-concept for future application of this technology in the diagnosis of food intolerance. The identified breath biomarkers will be investigated in relation to lactose malabsorption symptoms, usual diet, and clinical traits associated with lactose malabsorption, including genetic polymorphisms regulating the expression of the lactase gene, breath hydrogen, and lactose-derived urinary metabolites. Lactobreath profiles will be mechanistically linked with metabolic traits associated with lactose malabsorption, including colonic gases and urine metabolome.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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10. PhD Program in organizational learning from product failure

About PhD Position

The research delves into the impact of drug recalls on an organization’s future product development and overall product portfolio, as well as its repercussions on various stakeholders, especially patients suffering from rare or difficult-to-treat diseases. The goal is to develop better management practices that promote innovation. The project should culminate in a thesis composed of at least three high-quality research papers targeted at the field’s leading journals.

Application Deadline: June 10th 2023

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11. 02 PhD Program in integrated photonics with disordered materials for classical and quantum devices

About PhD Position

These two PhD projects aim to realize bottom-up polycrystalline nonlinear assemblies of metal-oxides for PICs, which in fabrication complexity and functionalities will outperform devices constructed from bulk crystals or top-down thin films. Different kinds of bottom-up wet chemistry of metal-oxide nanocrystals will be explored starting from barium titanate and lithium niobate materials that are transparent from ultraviolet to mid-infrared, strongly nonlinear and electro-optic.

Application Deadline: June 15th 2023

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12. PhD Program in Accelerating the roll-out of resilient net zero pathways for the Swiss and European energy system

About PhD Position

There is an urgent need to create a sustainable and resilient energy system to support the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and comply with the climate targets established by the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal. As climate change might pose various threats to a clean, affordable, and reliable energy transition, there is a need to combine energy and climate models within the analysis of the energy transition.

The project SPEED2ZERO of the joint initiative of the ETH domain aims to develop toolboxes, action plans, and technology to enable a sustainable transformation to a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) and biodiversity-positive Switzerland. Solutions will target immediate action conducive to halving GHG emissions by 2030, developing the required infrastructure, ensuring a resilient energy system, and securing biodiversity.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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13. PhD Program in breath metabolomics for enhancing dairy cattle welfare and health

About PhD Position

The Group of Animal Nutrition is seeking a motivated, team-oriented person with a strong interest in the interface of basic and applied research in agricultural and nutrition sciences to develop a non-invasive method as a tool for assessing rumen fermentation and microbial functions, physiological status, and health of dairy cows, in order to improve animal welfare.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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14. PhD Program in freezing of soft materials

About PhD Position

This thesis topic is about understanding how damage occurs when soft, wet materials are frozen. Despite this being a very common problem, it is still surprisingly poorly understood. Most people think that freezing causes damage because water expands as it freezes. However, this effect plays a very minor role: if we replace water with a liquid that shrinks as it freezes, it still causes damage. This is a problem ranging from frost heave damage to infrastructure, to storing food in freezers, to cryopreservation, and to life at low temperatures.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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15. PhD Program in Rock Mechanics

About PhD Position

You will develop a new methodology for constructing analogue models of engineering geology systems. Furthermore, you will achieve this using a combination of laboratory and numerical analysis to develop, validate and test the new methodology. In addition, you will then perform scaled experiments of engineering geology systems to make fundamental insights into processes such as rock slope failure and rock fracture propagation in jointed rock.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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16. PhD Program in science and technology studies

About PhD Position

We seek a doctoral researcher to join our team for the project «Investigating interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity: intersections of practices, culture(s) and policy in collaborative knowledge production» (INTERSECTIONS), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The Cultural Studies of Science Group (CSTS), in which this position is embedded, is a dynamic team studying and applying inter- and transdisciplinary methods and theories.

This project studies interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research as means of achieving transformative change. Our main aim is advancing the theoretical and methodological foundations for investigating, supporting and leveraging interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. It also focuses on the current policy debates around the impacts of and funding for collaborative research.

Application Deadline: June 9, 2023

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17. PhD Program in 3D cell-based tissue simulation framework

About PhD Position

We are looking for a PhD student with a strong background in computational science, computational biology or applied mathematics to extend a recently developed C++- based cell-based tissue simulation framework to represent further biophysical features, and to include a numerical solver for reaction-diffusion equations. You will integrate available image processing and meshing algorithms to create an integrated framework that simulates imaged tissues at cellular resolution. The framework will be applied to morphogenetic problems in developmental biology using imaging data. The simulations will be performed by the student on the cluster computing infrastructure of ETH.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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18. PhD Program in Rock Slope Analysis

About PhD Position

This is an SNSF-funded project that aims to improve our understanding of the failure and runout of rock slopes. The project combines field data collection with numerical modelling to better understand the preparatory, triggering and runout phases of rock slope failure. One of the PhD projects will focus on rock slope damage accumulation, while the other will focus on rock avalanche runout. The results from these two projects will then be combined to infer information regarding the catastrophic failure of rock slopes.

Application Deadline: May 17th 2023

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19. PhD Program in planetary magnetism

About PhD Position

The goal of this project is to produce a global state-of-the-art model of the crustal magnetic field at Mars using the open-source Python-driven toolbox SimPEG. The final high-resolution model will allow us to study processes that lead to magnetization, and better constrain dynamo timing. Future missions providing aerial coverage, e.g., from a helicopter, rely on crustal field maps for context and landing site selection and you will be involved in active planning efforts as they unfold.

Application Deadline: June 15, 2023

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20. PhD Program in studying the dynamics of transcrustal magmatic systems

About PhD Position

The PhD projects, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, will be integrated in the group of Prof. Olivier Bachmann, in collaboration with colleagues around the world, but in particular in Switzerland, USA, Japan, South America, Greece and Island. The projects will include a combination of fieldwork, geochemical/petrological analyses on natural (and possibly experimental) samples, and numerical modelling to decipher dominant processes occurring in volcanic provinces.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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21. PhD Program in Development of low-temperature CO2 sorbents for direct air capture

About PhD Position

The research group of Prof. Müller is looking for a highly motivated candidate with a strong interest in material development and characterization, structure-property relationships to yield highly effective, low-temperature CO2 sorbents for direct air capture. This research will be performed in close collaboration with the Mezzenga group at ETH Zürich.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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22. PhD Program in lipid biomarkers

About PhD Position

The Earth Ecosystem Dynamics Group (Geological Institute, Department of Earth Sciences) is looking for a highly motivated PhD student with an interest in past environmental changes, soil chemistry and organic geochemistry, to work on developing lipid-based proxies for soil fertility (defined here as the concentration of exchangeable cations). Your research will be part of the funded SNSF starting grant research project ROOTS (PI: Dr Cindy De Jonge): “Reconstructing soil fertility across Time and Space”.

Application Deadline: May 15th 2023

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23. PhD Program in SNSF Sinergia Research

About PhD Position

The overall project focuses on post-separation custody arrangements and their impact on children and will contribute to the identification of risk and resilience factors for child well-being after parental union dissolution in Switzerland. Building on the insights of social demography, psychology, architecture and housing studies, and law, this interdisciplinary project investigates the interdependent effects of four key dimensions on child well-being: socio-structural (social inequalities within and between families), relational (interpersonal relationships between family members), spatial (housing-mobility arrangements), and legal (legal regulations and court decisions).

Application Deadline: 15. May 2023

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24. PhD Program in Systems and Hardware Security

About PhD Position

We are interested in a variety of hot topics in the area of systems security with a special focus on hardware. The aim of the group is improving the security of modern computer systems. To do that, we often build novel analysis techniques to uncover previously-unknown attack surfaces and when appropriate we design and implement new systems to protect against various classes of attacks. This means that the group does heavy technical work, from building low-level systems to analyzing hardware components. Examples of our research topics include hardware design security, microarchitectural security, and operating system security to name a few.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

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