PhD, Master’s & Postdoc Opportunities in Earth Science in Switzerland

EPFL is offering a full-time PhD position in the Laloui Group in Lausanne, Switzerland, within the SNSF-funded DFabuLis project, “Digital Fabrication Using Living Systems.” The project is conducted with Dr. Dimitrios Terzis, Senior Scientist in the Laloui Group at EPFL, and co-PI Prof. Benjamin Dillenburger of the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich. The research explores how biologically driven mineralization can transform demolition and excavation materials into granular mater...

This PhD project is hosted in the Laloui Group at EPFL in Lausanne and is carried out within the SNSF-funded project DFabuLis: Digital Fabrication Using Living Systems . The research sits at the intersection of geomaterials, material science, and engineering applications, focusing on how biologically driven mineralization can be used to transform demolition and excavation materials into feedstocks for digital fabrication under ambient conditions. The doctoral researcher will investigate the coup...

This PhD project is part of VERTICAF (Vertical Africa: Visualizing Urban Change, Negotiating Power, Designing Sustainable Cities) , a comparative research initiative on urban verticalization in African cities. Based at EPFL Lausanne and linked to partnerships with the Universities of Dakar, Kigali, and Luanda, the project examines how cities in Africa are changing through vertical growth and what this means for urban futures. The doctoral researcher will focus on developing and applying methods ...

The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is seeking a postdoctoral researcher for the HydraSense project within its Remote Sensing group and Land Change Science Research Unit. The project addresses how climate-induced drought affects forest ecosystems and how remote sensing can identify changes in tree water status and thresholds associated with drought-induced mortality. The postdoctoral researcher will develop and evaluate methods for retrieving vegetation water ...

The University of Bern is offering two fully funded PhD positions in plant community ecology and ecosystem functioning , beginning in March 2027. The project, “Effects of transient plant species on ecosystem functioning and soil microbial communities, using the PaNDiv grassland field experiment,” will investigate how temporary or transient plant species influence the functioning of grassland ecosystems and associated soil microbial communities. The research connects plant community ecology with ...

This PhD project at EPFL’s Plant Ecology Research Laboratory (PERL) examines how forest canopy temperature and spectral properties track tree physiological responses to increasing atmospheric drought and soil water limitation. The research aims to understand how forests regulate canopy temperature and water use under drought stress and to develop approaches for mapping forest vulnerability from individual trees to large spatial scales. The work is highly interdisciplinary, combining plant ecophy...

The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher for the NOVA-City research program, which examines how medium-sized Swiss cities can build long-term resilience, environmental sustainability, and quality of life amid changing climatic, ecological, and societal conditions. The postdoctoral project, WaterScarCity: Water Scarcity Forecasting for Swiss Cities , will develop approaches to help cities prepare for increasingly frequent and ...

ETH Zürich is offering a fully funded PhD position in glaciology and glacial hazards through the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) and the ICEFAL Project. The research focuses on cold hanging glaciers in the French and Swiss Alps, investigating how climate warming affects glacier stability and ice-avalanche risk. The doctoral project combines high-altitude fieldwork with glacier modelling and geospatial analysis, providing an interdisciplinary research environment at the i...

Eawag’s Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to investigate fish migration and life history variation in anadromous Arctic charr. The project examines how glacial inputs shape fjord environments and how these environmental differences influence the ecology, movement patterns, foraging, phenotypic divergence, and local distinctiveness of Arctic charr populations. The research will compare populations using glacial-fed and tundra streams, fjords influenced ...