event 04 feb. 2022

Job Vacancy // Research Studentships (for Master or Integrated Master students)

Applications are open for 1 Research Studentship, within the framework of project nexIK: Exploring the Human-Water-Energy Nexus in Industrial Kitchens, EXPL/CCI-COM/1234/2021, financed by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC).

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About

Organization: Associação do Instituto Superior Técnico para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento _IST-ID

Research Field: Engineering

Location: Portugal, Lisboa

Workplan: Industrial kitchens (IKs) use between 5 and 7 times more energy per square meter than other commercial building spaces like office buildings and retail stores. Nevertheless, despite the size and ubiquity of this industry, its role in the global quest for sustainable energy systems is still widely under-explored.

The nexIK project will address this important topic, proposing a new methodology to quantify the interactions between Water, Energy, and Food in IKs. Commonly known as the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEFN), the developed methodology will provide a holistic approach to assess the impact of IK activity on the consumption of electricity and water.

To achieve this vision, the project will start by understanding the perceptions of the stakeholders (IK managers and users) about the WEFN, through questionnaires and interviews with IK stakeholders in the city of Lisbon. During this process, two IK will be recruited to collaborate in this project. These two IKs will then be equipped with a set of sensors and metering systems to measure the consumption both of energy and water for 12 consecutive months.

Based on the stakeholders' feedback, the characterization of different types of IKs, and the measured data, a new IK taxonomy will be proposed to assist (on a later stage of the project) in the definition of a WEFN modeling methodology that can be generalized to other IKs. The WEFN modeling will be developed based on data-driven dynamical systems. Such a data-driven methodology will facilitate the WEFN modeling process, which to date is mostly done following heavily manual and complex modeling processes and hence only applied at a macro level.

The selected candidate will contribute with several tasks that need to be developed in this phase of the project. More precisely:

  1. Actively participate in the recruitment process and in the characterization of the IKs towards understanding their infrastructures (e.g., types of appliances, and the number of staff), and processes (e.g., type of food served and staff routines).
  2. Actively participate in the user-centered research tasks aimed at understanding users' behaviors, needs, challenges, knowledge in what concerns the functioning of IKs, WEFN, and different energy efficiency/flexibility opportunities.
  3. Develop and validate a taxonomy of IKs by leveraging the results from the previous tasks and the data collected during the deployment.
  4. Assist the research team in the qualitative validation of the data-driven WEFN models that will be developed in the project.
  5. Assist the research team in the deployment of the monitoring technology and data quality assessments.
  6. Assist the research team in the continuous monitoring of the data collection campaign.
  7. Assist the research team in the production of reports and scientific presentations/publications.

Duration

The research fellowship(s) will have the duration of 9 months. It’s expected to begin during 02/2022. The research fellowship is not renewable.

Application

It is mandatory to formalize applications with the submission of the following documents:

B1 Form – Fellowship application (https://ist-id.pt/concursos/bolsas/ );

  1. Curriculum Vitae;
  2. Motivation letter;
  3. Academic degree certificate, where applicable;
  4. Proof of enrollment at an academic degree course (Master or Integrated Master);

Applications must be submitted to the email: nexik@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

The application deadline is February 23, 2022.

Requirements

Required education level

Engineering: Bachelor Degree or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

Admission Requirements:

  1. To be enrolled at: an integrated master or a master

The candidate should also:

  1. Be fluent in Portuguese
  2. Have good English written and oral skills
  3. Previous research experience (preferential)

Further Information

For more information, click here.

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