Postdoctoral fellowship in soft eDNA collectors for biodiversity monitoring in Zürich

at ETH Zurich welcomes applications for a postdoctoral fellowship on the study, development and characterization of soft collectors for terrestrial and airborne environmental DNA.

The position is available for one year and renewable for up to two years based on performance. The start date will be agreed upon by both parties.

With the historic Kunming-Montreal Agreement of 18 December 2022, more than 200 countries agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. But becoming nature-positive is an ambitious goal, also held-back by the lack of efficient and accurate tools to capture snapshots of global biodiversity. This is a task where robots, in combination with environmental DNA (eDNA) technologies, can make a difference. Measuring biodiversity with eDNA involves collecting and sequencing the genetic traces shed by local species in the environment. eDNA surveys are revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring because they are non-invasive and multiple species, even the most elusive ones, can be detected from a single environmental sample (e.g., water, soil, air). Sample collection is one of the most laborious and expensive parts of the workflow. Robots equipped with appropriate collection material can automate eDNA surveys and provide standardised and inexpensive biodiversity monitoring even in difficult-to-access environments.

In our work recently published in , we showed that a drone can collect eDNA from tree branches with commercially available adhesive materials (tape or humified gauze). We now want to study collectors with materials that are specifically designed for eDNA. Therefore, the proposed research project will explore new methods and materials to collect DNA and DNA-containing particles from various sources (e.g. surface, air) and substrates (e.g. soil, bark and leaves). This research includes:

• Experiment with functional materials, soft architectures and innovative manufacturing approaches to implement eDNA collectors (e.g. smart materials, origami production methods).
• Integrate the collectors on commercial or customised drones.
• Characterise the collectors with controlled experiments and field studies in collaboration with ecologists.
• Develop and test methods to extract eDNA from the collectors in collaboration with molecular biologists.

• You should hold a PhD in robotics, materials science, or related fields.
• A strong knowledge of design, prototyping and control of mechatronic systems is required.
• Strong motivation to work in a highly multidisciplinary environment collaborating with biologists and environmental scientists is required.
• Fluent communication skills (written and presentation) in English are essential. 
• You will also be expected to support PhD supervision, help coordinate the participation in the  and contribute to the lab's teaching activities.

The project will be hosted at , where the experiments inspiring these questions are being performed. This offers a unique opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team of roboticists, ecologists and biologists with tight feedback between experiment and theory, and the possibility to access state-of-the-art field sites (e.g. at Zurich Zoo).

We are a motivated and creative team of roboticists affiliated with ETH and WSL. Our research goal is to push robots out of their comfort zone. We, therefore, develop versatile and adaptable robots to explore challenging natural environments rather than robots to execute tasks with precision and repeatability in simple and predictable indoor settings. On one hand, this is an opportunity to study new and exciting locomotion, perception, and control strategies to obtain rich sensory and motor skills to operate in unknown and unpredictable environments. On the other hand, our robots provide concrete solutions to some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) by finding uses in environmental monitoring, disaster mitigation, and precision agriculture.