Postdoc: Climate, human behaviour and dengue forecasting

• you have, or will have completed by the starting date, a PhD in climate science, environmental science, physics or a related quantitative discipline
• you have experience with statistical modelling of climate impacts, health outcomes or social vulnerability
• you have strong programming skills in Python or R and experience combining and analysing spatial and temporal datasets
• you are motivated to learn and apply text analysis and emotion detection methods, with previous experience welcome but not essential
• you can work independently and collaborate across disciplines, with strong written and spoken English

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 3.706,00 (Scale 10) and maximum € 5.760,00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile Researcher 4. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• a position for at least 0.8 FTE for the project duration of 8 months.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• a full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• solid pension scheme (ABP)
• contribution to commuting expenses
• optional model for designing a personalized benefits package

In the NWO-funded FEEL project (Forecasting dengue Epidemics using Emotion and Language), for 8 months you will investigate whether emotions expressed in news and public social media can improve dengue forecasts alongside climate information. Based at VU Amsterdam’s Institute for Environmental Studies, you will help shape research connecting human behaviour, climate and health.  

• you develop and evaluate methods to derive indicators of human emotions from news and public social media you and integrate them with dengue surveillance records and climate data
• you build and validate forecasting models to test whether emotion indicators improve predictions beyond climate and past dengue incidence
• you assess the usefulness of these indicators across locations and lead times
• you prepare a scientific manuscript and document your methods and code for reproducible research

The department of Water and Climate Risk (WCR) studies hydrological and climate processes, and how these processes lead to risks and opportunities for society, the economy, and the environment. A defining characteristic of the department is a multi-disciplinary approach that combines expertise from natural sciences with knowledge from the fields of economics, e-Science and geography. This approach has led to a unique research portfolio of water and climate risk projects, and the department is a global leading institute in flood and drought risk assessment, and risk management research.

From forest fires to big data, from obesity to malnutrition, from helium to the universe and from genetics to medicine: our education and research cover the full breadth of science, from molecules to mankind. Our academic education and research are highly experimental, technical and interdisciplinary in nature. That is why we collaborate extensively with leading scientific institutes and industry. The faculty has more than 8,000 students studying in one of the 39 programmes and employs more than 1,400 staff across 10 scientific departments, making us one of the largest science faculties in the Netherlands.

We are located on one physical campus, in the heart of Amsterdam's Zuidas business district, with excellent location and accessibility. Over 6,150 staff work at the VU and over 31,000 students attend academic education.

We stand for an inclusive community and believe that diversity and internationalisation contribute to the quality of education, research and our services.

Therefore, we are always searching for people whose backgrounds and experience contribute to the diversity of the VU community.

Are you interested in this position and do you believe that your experience will contribute to the further development of our university? In that case, we encourage you to submit your application.

IMPORTANT: Motivation letter should be limited to 1 page, resumés to 2 pages. Motivation letters generated with ChatGPT or other AI language tools will not be considered.

The job interviews are planned in the week of November 23 and first week of December 2026, so please take this into account when applying for the position.

Submitting a diploma and a reference check are part of the application process.

Applications received by e-mail will not be considered.

Acquisition in response to this advertisement is not appreciated.