PhD 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 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...

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...

ETH Zurich is offering a fully funded four-year doctoral position in 3D scene reconstruction and multi-modal sensing for information-rich digital twins of stone-built heritage. The project is part of the collaborative HC3 – Heritage Conservation Collaboration Copilots initiative, led by the Chair of Physical Chemistry of Building Materials and the Chair of Geosensors and Engineering Geodesy. The doctoral researcher will work on reality capture at scale, including LiDAR and imaging technologies d...

The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is offering a full-time PhD position in the Alpine Remote Sensing group within the Climate Change, Extreme Events and Natural Hazards in the Alpine Region (CERC) research center. The position is based primarily at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos, Switzerland, with periods at SUPSI in Mendrisio and fieldwork in Canton Ticino. The PhD research will develop, test, and implement methodologies for i...

The University of Zurich is offering a four-year, 80% PhD position in Large-Scale In-Situ Experiments on Glacier Ice Rheology and Thermodynamics within the Swiss National Science Foundation-funded LISERT project. The doctoral researcher will join the Glaciology and Geomorphodynamics Group in the Department of Geography and investigate how temperate glacier ice deforms under active forcing at metre scales. The research combines large-scale in-situ glacier measurements, structural-geological analy...