All Things Urban

Since Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam was founded in 1880 VU Amsterdam has been known for its distinctive approach to knowledge. VU is an open organisation, strongly linked to people and society. What matters is not just the acquisition of a greater depth of knowledge, but also a wider one. We ask and expect our students, researchers, PhD candidates and employees to look further – to look further than their own interests and their own field, and further than what is familiar and further than the here and now.

Do you have a passion for (big) geospatial data analysis as well as human settlements, and would you like to work in research and teaching on sustainable land use in an interdisciplinary team? Please apply at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Human settlements exist in a variety of forms, ranging from villages to metropolises, and from slums to suburbs. However, in studies of land use change, such differences are normally not recognised, as all are represented as built-up land or urban land. The Vidi project “Guiding human settlements towards sustainable development” aims to generate new data, understanding and tools to study the human settlement changes and their role in land use change processes. The role of this PhD is to conduct innovative research on the characterization of human settlements beyond the identification of built-up areas only. The successful candidate will use a range of geospatial datasets to identify different types of human settlements, such as suburbs, peri-urban areas, slums, and urban centres. These data include remote sensing imagery of various types, but also gridded socioeconomic data, road and infrastructure networks, census and (DHS) survey data, data from social media, and potentially other sources of information. These data will be processed using statistical analysis as well as artificial intelligence algorithms for supervised classification (specifically the project aims to employ convoluted neural networks (CNN) to identify spatial patterns in human settlements). Results will be used to better understand dynamics in human settlements as well as to improve large-scale land use models for projecting land use change trajectories. Within this project an intensive collaboration with the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) - Earth Observation Centre is foreseen.

- identify different types of human settlements and create ground-truth data for these types - develop and employ different methods for mapping human settlements at large spatial scales (including statistical as well as machine learning approaches) - analyse the occurrence and changes in different settlement types - support the improvement of large-scale land use models - present findings in international (peer-reviewed) journals and scientific conferences - support teaching activities at BSc and MSc level

- Master degree in geography, geo-informatics, or a related discipline with strong spatial / analytical components - good spatial analysis skills, including GIS and remote sensing - good programming / scripting skills - interested in scientific research on land use and human settlements - willingness to travel abroad for collaborative projects (Including DLR) - ability to work in an interdisciplinary team and contribute to activities of the Environmental Geography group, in which this position is embedded

A challenging position in a socially involved organization. The salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel and amounts €2,325 (PhD) per month during the first year and increases to €2,972 (PhD) per month during the fourth year, based on a full-time employment. The job profile is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for 1 FTE. The appointment will initially be for 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended for a duration of 4 years in total. Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as: - a maximum of 41 days of annual leave based on full-time employment - 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus - solid pension scheme (ABP)

This job is available for international candidates.