You will be involved in the development of novel i-motif DNA-Au carbene hybrids for enantioselective Au catalysis using the inherent chirality of DNA to induce asymmetry. Key objectives will involve the synthesis of b-N-stabilised Au carbenes from N-heterocyclic containing allenes, and their application in DNA based-asymmetric catalysis for the synthesis of products relevant for drug-discovery in high enantiomeric purity. 

You will also be expected to collaborate with the group of Prof Zoë Waller at UCL. Prof Waller is a Professor of Drug Discovery and Head of the Research Department of Pharmaceutical and Biological Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy at UCL, and a world-leading expert in drug-nucleic acid interactions and alternative DNA structures with applications in medicine and nanotechnology. 

ABOUT YOU

You will: 

• Have a PhD in Chemistry or a related subject
• Have experience in experimental organometallic chemistry
• Be able to demonstrate a publication record of research in a relevant area appropriate to career stage

THE BENEFITS OF THE ROLE

• Generous holiday leave - 25 days (pro-rata) annual leave plus University closure days and bank holidays.
• Access to employee pension scheme, and annual flexible benefits scheme.
• We are committed to promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion across the Faculty, and supporting family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis. The Department holds an Athena Swan Bronze Award, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in Higher Education and research. Please see the university’s family friendly webpages to find out more - Family-friendly Lancaster - Lancaster University
• The university is committed to supporting the professional and career development for all staff, for instance Lancaster University’s is fully commitment to the principles of the corcordat to support the career development of researchers. This has resulted in the university receiving the HR Excellence in Research Award. 

The Department of Chemistry was re-opened in 2012 and has undergone rapid expansion and development. The Department consists of a core complement of more than 20 members of academic staff and a thriving community of post-doctoral researchers, PGR and UG students. It ranks highly in the UK (7th in the Guardian University Guide 2024) with state-of-the-art labs housed in a completely refurbished building. 

Further information about the Department is available at: Chemistry - Lancaster University 

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be addressed to Dr M. Paz Muñoz (m.munoz-herranz@lancaster.ac.uk).

Please upload a cover letter with your application.

Closing Date: 12 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £39,906 to £46,049 (Full-Time/Indefinite with End Date)

GEMINI explores gaze and eye movement for novel interfaces and as postdoc you would help us tackle core challenges of the project, in particular: 

• Design of spatial interaction techniques that are gaze-assisted or attention-aware
• Applying AI methods to classify visual behaviours, infer context and recognise input
• Exploring gaze in combination with modalities for productivity in extended reality (XR) 

You should have a PhD degree or equivalent experience, a strong motivation for both blue skies research and technical innovation in HCI. You should be comfortable in prototyping interactive systems, working with sensors and signals, conducting studies with people, and analysing data. 

As senior RA, you will lead research that contributes to the top of the field in CHI/UIST and/or VR/AR, provide guidance and support to PhD students and help manage lab facilities and research data. At Lancaster, you will be part of an international and supportive research environment, and you will be working with a PI who is strongly committed to mentoring and career development.

You will join us on an indefinite contract. However, the role remains contingent on external funding which for this position is initially available until 30 June 2027. 

You are welcome to contact Prof. Hans Gellersen informally for discussion of your interest. 

We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis, as well as the Athena SWAN Charter, which recognizes and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in higher education and research. We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.  

Closing Date: 08 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £39,906 to £46,049 (Full-Time/Indefinite with End Date)

Closing Date: 23 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £33,002 to £37,694 (Full time, indefinite with end date)

Senior Research Associate in Organisational Health & Well-being

Grade 7

The Centre for Organisational Health & Well-being in the Division of Health Research (DHR) within Lancaster University’s Faculty of Health and Medicine is seeking to appoint a Senior Research Associate in Organisational Health & Well-being. You will play a key role supporting a new research project funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research on promoting sustainable work through healthy psychosocial work environments. 

You will support the Principal Investigator Professor Stavroula Leka and Co-investigators Drs Caroline Swarbrick, Abigail Morris, Elisavet Christou in a range of policy related research activities. This will include the whole range of research skills including preparation of research ethics and governance applications, conducting qualitative research, contributing to literature and policy reviews and case study development, and preparing project reports and scientific papers for publication. You will demonstrate excellent communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work alongside a range of colleagues including academic staff, workplace health professionals, policymakers and international stakeholders.  This is an ideal opportunity to work flexibly, build research skills, and work alongside internationally renowned groups of researchers and stakeholders. 

Please see the person specifications to understand the characteristics that are essential or desirable for these roles. Ideally, you will have excellent skills in qualitative research methods research focusing on organisational health and well-being, and excellent knowledge of the psychosocial work environment, sustainable work, and organisational health and well-being, evidenced through a doctorate in this area. Writing skills are particularly valued, and experience of authoring project reports, and papers for publication is critical. Experience of working collaboratively in multi-disciplinary research teams, and engaging with policymakers and international stakeholders would be an advantage, as would relevant work experience. We are looking for self-directed and committed individuals with an interest in becoming a key part of our organisational health and well-being research team.  

The Centre for Organisational Health & Well-being conducts high-quality cutting-edge research and provides innovative educational programmes to promote sustainable work and organisational health and well-being.  See https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/health-and-medicine/research/cohwb/

The Faculty provides an environment that strongly supports the individual needs of each employee, promoting a healthy work-life balance. We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis, as well as the Athena SWAN Charter, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in higher education.

The post is available to start June 2026 and we will consider against the business needs of the project flexible working arrangements including condensed hours, days/hours worked and flexible start and finish times. You will join Lancaster University on an indefinite contract; however, the role remains contingent on external funding, which at this time is due to come to an end 31^st May 2029.

Applicants wishing to consider the Skilled Worker Route should ensure they meet the points requirement before applying. Further information can be found on the UK Visas and Immigration website.

We welcome applications from those of the global majority under-represented within the Division. 

For further information, please contact: Professor Stavroula Leka stavroula.leka@lancaster.ac.uk   

Closing Date: 10 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £39,906 to £46,049 (Full-Time/Indefinite with End Date)

Department: Phonetics Laboratory / Linguistics and English Language
Contract: Full-time (1.0 FTE), fixed-term [18 months]

The Project

Modern machine learning can predict vocal tract shapes from audio recordings of the voice with remarkable accuracy, but most of these models are black boxes. This Royal Society-funded project aims to crack open the black box and solve one of the most compelling challenges in speech science: understanding the mapping between vocal tract movements and the acoustic speech signal. Using state-of-the-art MRI recordings of the vocal tract during speech, we aim to develop machine learning approaches that don’t just predict acoustic output from articulatory configurations, but reveal why and how these mappings work. We need approaches that combine predictive power with scientific insight: models whose internal representations align with phonetic and physical knowledge. This requires hybrid machine learning (ML) approaches that integrate domain knowledge with data-driven learning, as well as explainable AI (xAI) techniques that make model behaviour transparent and scientifically meaningful. You will apply these approaches to a large database of real-time MRI and acoustic recordings of the vocal tract. Solving this problem will help to drive fundamental progress on critical applications, such as articulatory biofeedback for language learning and speech therapy.

Your Role

Working with Dr Sam Kirkham (Lancaster, Speech Science), Dr Anton Ragni (Sheffield, Computer Science) and Professor Aneta Stefanovska (Lancaster, Physics) you'll develop and validate interpretable ML approaches for modelling acoustic-articulatory relations using MRI vocal tract data. The position is available for 18 months from 1 July 2026 (start date negotiable).

Key objectives

• Develop hybrid ML architectures that incorporate phonetic and physical constraints.
• Apply and extend explainable AI techniques for speech production modelling.
• Validate model interpretations against established knowledge.
• Lead and/or contribute to publications at the intersection of speech science and machine learning.

This is a methodologically creative role with genuine intellectual ownership. You'll have access to rich MRI datasets and Lancaster's high-performance computing facilities.

Why This Role?

• Intellectual ownership – shape the methodology, not just implement it.
• Interdisciplinary impact – apply ML expertise to fundamental questions about human speech.
• Publication opportunities – first-author papers bridging AI and speech science.
• Flexibility – flexible working arrangements.
• Strong mentorship – work with researchers spanning speech production, computational modelling, machine learning, and biophysics.
• Career development – build expertise at the growing intersection of interpretable AI and speech processing.

Informal enquiries welcome: Dr Sam Kirkham, s.kirkham@lancaster.ac.uk

Closing Date: 10 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £39,906 (Full-Time/Indefinite with End Date)

The advent of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of cloud-based technologies call for denser, faster and more energy efficient data processing and storage. However, the heat produced by modern data centres has already become a serious limitation to further increase their performance. At present, the data industry lacks a solution for this problem, which in future may contribute greatly to the global warming and energy crisis. This project aims to pave a way towards a memory-device characterized by very low energy consumption and switching times of one trillionth of a second. Very short pulses of electro-magnetic radiation at terahertz frequency (i.e. thousand times faster than that in current data communication and processing standards) are among the shortest stimuli available. These pulses are made from light particles, photons, with their energies naturally matching those of elementary quantum magnets, “spins”, which are used to store information in the magnetic memory. Hence, such terahertz photons can selectively excite spins on their own energy scale without releasing any significant heating into the surrounding medium. Furthermore, the terahertz excitation of the spins is expected to be strong enough to induce switching of the spins’ orientations, representing an elementary act of writing a bit of information within a magnetic data storage device.  

The position offers access to state-of-the art ultrafast laser facilities and challenging research project at the interface of photonics and magnetism. You will contribute to solving the existential challenge to the humankind: excessive energy consumption by data-intensive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and cloud computing. 

Successful candidates will hold a PhD in experimental physics in a field related to this project. Training in unique experimental techniques will be provided, but we expect you to have prior experience of one or more of the following areas: 

• Ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy;
• Terahertz photonics; 
• Magnetic and/or spintronic materials;
• Optical measurements at cryogenic temperatures;
• Near-field microscopy and nanoscopy. 

 The post is available immediately and is offered for 24 months at the first instance. The further extension of the post is possible subject to performance. 

 About Green Future Fellowship programme: 

https://raeng.org.uk/green-future-fellowships 

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/physics/about-us/news/green-future-fellowship-for-lancaster-physicist 

 Key publications: 

[1] R. A. Leenders, O. Y. Kovalenko, Y. Saito, N. R. Vovk, A. V. Kimel, and R. V. Mikhaylovskiy. THz-driven spin dynamics in orthoferrites with Kramers and Non-Kramers rare-earth ions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 246703 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1103/ldnx-67qz 

[2] R. A. Leenders, D. Afanasiev, A. V. Kimel and R. V. Mikhaylovskiy. Canted spin order as a platform for ultrafast conversion of magnons. Nature 630, 335 (2024). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07448-3

[3] S. Schlauderer, C. Lange, S. Baierl, T. Ebnet, C. P. Schmid, D. C. Valovcin, A. K. Zvezdin, A. V. Kimel, R. V. Mikhaylovskiy and R. Huber. Temporal and spectral fingerprints of ultrafast all-coherent spin switching. Nature 569, 383 (2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1174-7 

[4]. S. Baierl, M. Hohenleutner, T. Kampfrath, A. K. Zvezdin, A. V. Kimel, R. Huber, and R. V. Mikhaylovskiy. Nonlinear spin control by terahertz driven anisotropy fields. Nature Photonics 10, 715 (2016). https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2016.181 

 About Lancaster University: 

Lancaster University is consistently ranked in the top 10 in the UK university league tables. It is located on a beautiful campus in the North-West of England close to the Lake District National Park.

The Department of Physics is committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis, as well as the Athena SWAN Charter, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in higher education and research. We are also strongly committed to fostering diversity within our community as a source of excellence, cultural enrichment, and social strength. We welcome those who would contribute to the further diversification of our department. 

 Informal inquiries:

If this opportunity interests, you and you'd like to know more—or if you're unsure whether your experience is the right fit—we encourage you to contact the principal investigator directly: Dr Rostislav Mikhaylovskiy r.mikhaylovskiy@lancaster.ac.uk He will gladly discuss any technical questions about the post or the working environment within his research team.

Closing Date: 08 May 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £33,002 to £46,049 (Full-Time/Indefinite with End Date)

Your research will be in an area of statistics and/or operational research and will have potential for wider impact. It will ideally complement existing strength in these topics at Lancaster University. You will be able to develop your research according to a proposal that forms part of your application. You will work within the vibrant research environment of the STOR-i Centre for Doctoral Training, with support from a nominated staff member who has research interests most aligned with your own.

The post requires you to take an active part in STOR-i training activities and its Executive Committee. You will deliver some training to STOR-i’s PhD students according to a proposal that forms part of your application.

Informal enquiries can be addressed to: 

Prof Idris Eckley (i.eckley@lancaster.ac.uk) 

Dr Anna-Lena Sachs (a.sachs@lancaster.ac.uk)

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.

Closing Date: 17 Apr 2026

Department: Research

Salary: £33,002 to £37,694 (Full time, indefinite with end date)

You will have the opportunity to undertake internationally regarded research and share responsibility for elements of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes. You will be awarded a training contract with Health Education England Northwest in the specialist registrar/specialty trainee grade or equivalent and an honorary contract with a relevant NHS Trust*.

One post is in the NIHR priority theme of digital research. The theme is looking to encourage training and research around the development and delivery of digital health and care interventions, digital research methodology and ‘big data’ analysis Research could include the use of Artificial Intelligence and machine-learning approaches and emerging digital technologies such as non-contact sensors, smartphones, and computer tablets. This theme could also include research in data analytics and predictive analytics, precision medicine (genomics), and virtual & augmented reality. This theme is focused on delivering equitable, cost-effective digital health interventions to deliver patient benefits as well as the wider use of large data sets and how this is used in research, including digital analysis methods.

There may be the potential for opportunities in other GMC registered specialties if research interests align with faculty strengths. 

To be eligible, you must hold (or have submitted) your PhD/MD at the time you apply; and must have been fully awarded your degree by 30 September 2026.  You must hold a current National Training Number (NTN) in the relevant specialty and be more than 12 months prior to CCT at time of appointment* (*not relevant for GP candidate). 

The research element of the post will be based in the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University. The clinical component will be centered around clinical settings in Lancashire and the surrounding area. 

You must be able to take up the post by 30 September 2026

Application is via our online portal at https://hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/ and must include the following attachments:

1. A Curriculum Vitae
2. NIHR Supplementary Questions for candidates form (attached): 

*Please refer to appendix 2 of this document*

Interview date will be advertised in due course, but the successful candidate must be in post by 30 September 2026.

Lancaster University is committed to providing equal opportunities for all and offers a range of family-friendly policies. The University is a charter member of Athena SWAN and has held a bronze award since 2008. The Faculty of Health and Medicine gained the silver award in 2013. We are committed to being an inclusive university that values all staff, and we are happy to consider job share applications and requests for flexible working arrangements from our employees.

General enquiries should be made to Dr Amy Gadoud (Academic Training Programme Director and Consultant in Palliative Medicine), email: a.gadoud@lancaster.ac.uk or Beth Whittaker (ICAT Programme Manager), email: b.whittaker@lancaster.ac.uk

Closing Date: 18 Jul 2026

Department: Research

Salary: Clinical Academic Pay Scales