Postdoctoral Research Fellowship - Dept of Materials Engineering / BRIMM / DSI

Summary: The Department of Materials Engineering at the Vancouver campus (Hydrometallurgy group) is looking for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to work on a 12-month project on prediction and management of the long-term environmental risk of mine waste rock piles via 5G-enabled instrumentation and monitoring. The successful candidate will be supervised by Drs. Wenying Liu and Roger Beckie, in collaboration with UBC BRIMM and Data Science Institute. The position is expected to start March 2024, for a period of 12 months, with possible extension if further funding is provided by the sponsor. The salary range for this position is $75,000 plus statutory benefits.

Description:Large quantities of mine waste are generated after valuable metals are extracted. Upon exposure to air and water, a diverse range of metals and metalloids are released and mobilized to the surrounding environment. The release process involves complex multiphase fluid transport, heat transport, geochemical reactions, and microbial activities. There is an urgent need to manage the environmental risk posed by mine waste rock piles given the spatial and temporal scale of the problem. A major bottleneck is the lack of data on waste rock pile properties. The main objective of this research is to understand how to best use 5G-enabled wireless sensor networks to monitor key characteristics such as moisture, oxygen content, and temperature of mine waste rock piles, and to use machine learning (ML) to predict drainage quantity and quality.

The salary range for this position is $75,000 plus statutory benefits.

Application deadline: December 31, 2023.

For more information and to apply, please click here.