Open Post-doc special joint position: Buildings and Climate Change

Open Post-doc special joint position: Buildings and Climate Change

The World Economic Forum and Tel Aviv University seek a Hoffmann Fellow for a two-year joint appointment for work at the intersection of buildings and climate change. The Fellow will be based jointly at the World Economic Forum’s Center in Geneva, Switzerland and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University, Israel.

The Fellowship will focus on innovation in the area of embodied and operational impacts of buildings, with the aims of identifying a digital platform that can help transform and reduce the way we think, design, build and operate buildings and their impact on climate change. This would include for example:

Identifying datasets and tools that exists for measuring the GWP of variety of building materials.

Map the existing knowledge about energy efficiency in buildings and strategies to increase it.

Identify existing and new digital tools in support of the construction industry in achieving circular economy and GHG emissions reduction along the life cycle of the buildings.

Using technological platforms for sustainable demolition of buildings.

Creating a new framework to synthesize the role of digital tools in transition to net-zero buildings.

The exact scope of the project will be defined together with the chosen candidate so there is a room for creativity by the fellow to design his\her exact refined goals and tasks during the position period. The specific activities/deliverables of the fellowship will be shaped during an initial period of 4 months for the fellow to engage with a wide network of experts and stakeholders, after which the Fellow will present their proposal and initial thoughts to how best to tackle and deliver on the objectives of the Fellowship. This may include, for example envisioned outcomes such as:

Writing one or more academic papers related to the framework

Writing one or more white paper on the need for such a tool

Creating an open access integrated tool to assist with decision making across the value chains and life cycle of buildings

• the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Some industrial ecology candidates that are on the job market...

• Betzy Bowen
  Keele University and The Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute(KIRDI)
• Kun Peng
  Institute of Blue and Green Development, Shandong University