Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Midwest Regional Energy Symbiosis

Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Midwest Regional Energy Symbiosis

The University of Notre Dame invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a collaborative, interdisciplinary team of researchers from Notre Dame, Indiana University, Purdue University, and the University of Wisconsin to develop and pilot an AI-enabled material flow and industrial symbiosis framework that connects energy, water, and resource loops. This innovative research engages the Midwest's strong presence in manufacturing, agricultural landscapes, construction activity, and freshwater resources as a living regional laboratory to develop transferable methods for mapping, modeling, and evaluating industrial symbiosis opportunities across interconnected energy, water, material, agricultural, industrial, and construction systems. The postdoctoral fellow will serve as the central analytical and coordination lead for the project, working under the technical guidance of the PI and co-investigators.

The postdoctoral fellow will contribute to key project outcomes, including, but not limited to:

• Developing an innovative industrial symbiosis framework that outlines short-term feasible and long-term transformative cross-sector exchanges.
• Creating a transparent AI-enabled and replicable methodology that can be adapted to other Midwestern and U.S. regions to support energy-water-resource engineering and circular economy research.
• Coordinating meetings and work with faculty teams and other research assistants.
• Lead the co-authorship of interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed publications in high impact journals and develop the foundation for future grant proposals.

The postdoctoral fellow will assume the following key responsibilities:

• Compiling, managing, and integrating geospatial and infrastructure datasets related to industrial facilities, manufacturing processes, water and wastewater systems, solid waste streams, agricultural production, energy systems, construction-related material demand, and secondary resource flows.
• Developing regional material flow inventories that identify major sources, sinks, transformation points, and potential exchange pathways.
• Conducting industrial symbiosis screening to identify feasible cross-sector resource exchanges.
• Supporting the development of transparent AI-enabled assessment methods.
• Conducting simplified material flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, and techno-economic screening to evaluate selected symbiosis pathways.
• Preparing technical briefs, maps, diagrams, scenario portfolios, and visualizations to support team coordination and communication with public and private sector partners.
• Producing first drafts of scholarly manuscripts and contributing technical content, preliminary results, figures, and supporting analyses for follow-on grant proposals.

This search is conducted with leadership from Notre Dame's Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a University-wide effort to build a sustainable future where people and nature flourish together. The Initiative supports an interdisciplinary cohort of postdoctoral scholars dedicated to advancing sustainability research grounded in the principles of integral ecology and integral human development.

This is a full-time position available with an initial appointment of one-year, renewable for an additional year on the basis of satisfactory performance and availability of funding.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. (in hand by the starting date) in industrial ecology, environmental engineering, civil and environmental engineering, systems engineering, sustainable manufacturing, urban systems, architecture/engineering, environmental science, geography, data science, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated research experience in one or more of the following areas: material flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, techno-economic analysis, industrial symbiosis, circular economy, resource recovery, waste management, water-energy-food systems, sustainable manufacturing, or low-carbon construction/material systems.
• Strong quantitative and data-integration skills, including experience working with geospatial data, infrastructure datasets, environmental inventories, or regional-scale resource-flow data.
• Expertise with LCA/MFA tools, databases, or methods; experience with software such as SimaPro, openLCA, Brightway, Python, R, GIS platforms, or related analytical tools is desirable.
• Experience with AI, machine learning, optimization, spatial analysis, scenario modeling, or decision-support methods is strongly preferred, especially when applied in transparent, interpretable, or policy-relevant contexts.
• Ability to synthesize complex multi-sector information into clear analytical outputs, including maps, figures, diagrams, tables, technical memos, and scholarly manuscripts.
• Strong writing, communication, and coordination skills, with the ability to work across a multi-institutional and interdisciplinary research team.
• Interest in regional sustainability, circular resource engineering, industrial ecology, and applied research that supports energy-water-resource loop closure.

Additional Information

The University of Notre Dame seeks to attract, develop, and retain the highest quality faculty, staff and administration. The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or age in employment. Moreover, Notre Dame prohibits discrimination against veterans or disabled qualified individuals, and complies with 41 CFR 60-741.5(a) and 41 CFR 60-300.5(a). We strongly encourage applications from candidates attracted to a university with a Catholic identity.