Professor Materials Engineering: Engineering of metallic surface degradation under harsh environmental conditions

• You develop a research program at an international level in the domain of the vacancy. The gradual degradation of metallic surfaces, influenced by harsh environmental conditions, inevitably results in diminished product or structure performance. This decline is compounded by the synergistic effects of these conditions, often leading to a degradation rate significantly higher than the additive effects of each process in isolation. This underscores a substantial interaction between the various processes in the given environment. The field of surface engineering of metals is a multidisciplinary endeavor aimed at tailoring the properties of metal surfaces to enhance their function and serviceability in harsh environments. Achieving this goal necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms, encompassing both experimental and theoretical perspectives. In the context of this position, particular emphasis will be placed on metallic surfaces, where these challenging environmental conditions play pivotal roles. 
• The proposed research line is complementary to the ongoing activities in the Elooi Lab and the Materials Engineering Department, being plasticity, fracture mechanics, fatigue and fretting fatigue. Ongoing research activities on plasticity of metals and fretting fatigue failure in metals would benefit from additional expertise in advanced surface engineering.
• You engage in targeted scientific research, resulting in PhD’s and publications that meet international standards and lead to broad international recognition.
• You support or initiate a network of local and international companies through the implementation and valorisation of research results and by delivering industrial services, aimed at strengthening industrial innovation.
• As part of your research programme, you develop international partnerships, within the academic world as well as with industrial partners.
• You are able to acquire competitive funding, both project-based government funding as well as industrial funding.
• You strive for excellence and thus contribute to the further development of the research group and the department.
• You pay the required attention to the technology transfer and application of the results of your research in industry/government/society, both local and international.

• You ensure high-quality education within the field of materials engineering and mechanical engineering, like machine design, quality control, materials degradation and general materials engineering courses, with a clear commitment to the quality of the programme as a whole. All professors are expected to teach a few basic undergraduate courses. The undergraduate courses are taught in Dutch.
• You contribute to the faculty’s and the university’s pedagogical project through the supervision of master theses and as a promotor of PhD students.
• You develop your teaching in accordance with KU Leuven’s views on activating and researched-based education and make use of the possibilities for educationalist professionalization offered by the faculty and the university.
• Your teaching task is determined in consultation and is based on your specific profile. The scope is limited in the first years of your appointment. In your further career, the faculty pays a great deal of attention to the balance between research and teaching time.

• You are prepared to provide services to the scientific community, to society and to the university in function of the needs and your personal interests.
• You maintain close contact with the local industry.
• You play an active part in promoting the KU Leuven Campus Ghent, the Department of Materials Engineering and the Faculty of Engineering Technology towards new students and the wider professional field by participating in open days, networking events and fairs, ...

• We are offering full-time employment in an intellectually challenging environment.
• KU Leuven is a research-intensive, internationally oriented university that carries out both fundamental and applied scientific research. Our university is highly inter- and multidisciplinarily focused and strives for international excellence. In this regard we actively work together with research partners in Belgium and abroad and provide our students with an academic education that is based on high-quality scientific research.
• You will work at the KU Leuven Campus Ghent, in a historic city with a 40-minute rail connection to Brussels, and about three hours train to Paris, London and Amsterdam
• Depending on your record and qualifications, you will be appointed to or tenured in one of the grades of the senior academic staff: assistant professor, associate professor, professor or full professor. In principle, junior researchers are appointed as assistant professor on the tenure track for a period of 5 years; after this period and a positive evaluation, they are permanently appointed (or tenured) as an associate professor.
• KU Leuven is well set to welcome foreign professors and their family and provides practical support with regard to immigration & administration, housing, childcare, learning Dutch, partner career coaching, … 
• To facilitate scientific onboarding and accelerate research in the first phase a starting grant of 100.000 euro is offered to new professors without substantial other funding, appointed for at least 50%.

You can submit your application until XXXX, only through our online application system. If you have problems submitting your application online, please send an email to solliciteren@kuleuven.be

Add to your application following documents (more information is available on the KU Leuven job site):

KU Leuven places great importance on research integrity and ethical conduct and will therefore ask you to sign an integrity statement upon appointment.