Phd Position: Investigating Effects of Lifestyle

**Project Description**

**Role description**
- Study relevant literature in the field of carbohydrate metabolism in health and disease (e.g. cancer patients).
- Work out the details of the project proposal and obtain medical ethical approval.
- Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of researchers to develop MR metabolic imaging methods at 7T to measure carbohydrate metabolism in different organs.
- Plan, coordinate and perform human lifestyle intervention studies.
- Perform biochemical lab analyses, MRI/MRS analyses and accompanying data analyses.

**Main tasks and responsibilities**
- Contributing to the full project plan (under supervision).
- Developing an ultra-high field MR metabolic imaging method to measure tissue carbohydrate metabolism (in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team).
- Setting up and executing a human intervention study (writing protocol for ethical clearance, practical preparation for research, participant/patient recruitment, planning and execution of test days, data handling and analysis).
- Preparing progress reports, writing high-quality papers to be published in international peer-reviewed journals (under supervision), and present research outcomes at national and international conferences.
- Actively contributing to other research activities within the larger research group.
- Setting up and/or maintaining collaborations with other partners.
- Keeping up with the relevant scientific literature within the field of study.
- Supervising of research assistants and students, where appropriate.
- Completing a PhD thesis in 4 years.

**Requirements**:

- A Master's degree in a relevant field such as human movement sciences, biomedical engineering, (technical) medicine, biomedical sciences, or health sciences.
- A strong interest in the areas of lifestyle interventions, human and carbohydrate metabolism is preferred.
- Experience with MRI or other imaging techniques (we will provide training and support to develop expertise in metabolic imaging during the project).
- Proven skills in quantitative analysis and scientific writing.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to work in an interdisciplinary team.

**What we offer**
**As **PhD Position: Investigating Effects of Lifestyle Interventions on Carbohydrate Metabolism** **at **Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences**, you will be employed by the most international university in the Netherlands, located in the beautiful city of Maastricht. In addition, we offer you**:

- Good employment conditions. The position is graded in scale P according to UFO profile PhD, with corresponding salary based on experience ranging from €2901,00 and €3707,00 gross per month (based on a full-time employment of 38 hours per week). In addition to the monthly salary, an 8.0% holiday allowance and an 8.3% year-end bonus apply.
- An employment contract for a period of 12 months with a scope of 1,0 FTE. Upon a positive evaluation, an extension of 3 years will follow.
- At Maastricht University, the well-being of our employees is of utmost importance, we offer flexible working hours and the possibility to work partly from home if the nature of your position allows it. You will receive a monthly commuting and internet allowance for this. If you work full-time, you will be entitled to 29 vacation days and 4 additional public holidays per year, namely carnival Monday, carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, and Liberation Day. If you choose to accumulate compensation hours, an additional 12 days will be added. Furthermore, you can personalize your employment conditions through a collective labor agreement (CAO) choice model.
- As Maastricht University, we offer various other excellent secondary employment conditions. These include a good pension scheme with the ABP and the opportunity for UM employees to participate in company fitness and make use of the extensive sports facilities that we also offer to our students. Last but certainly not least, we provide the space and facilities for your personal and professional development. We facilitate this by offering a wide range of training programs and supporting various well-established initiatives such as 'acknowledge and appreciate'.The terms of employment at Maastricht University are largely set out in the collective labor agreement of Dutch Universities. In addition, local provisions specific to UM apply. For more information, click here.

**Maastricht University**
Why work at Maastricht University?
At Maastricht University (UM), everything revolves around the future. The future of our students, as we work to equip them with a solid, broad-based foundation for the rest of their lives. And the future of society, as we seek solutions through our research to issues from all around the world. Our six faculties combined provide a comprehensive package of study programmes and research.

In our teaching, we use the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method. Students work in small groups, looking for solutions t