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Three-year PhD position in Statistical Seismology and Geomechanics at ETH Zürich (Edi Kissling and Didier Sornette)

Date: 04/10/2017

On behalf of Didlier Sornette, ETH Zürich:
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Active faulting and extreme earthquake hazard estimation in California and Anatolia using seismicity-based mapping of brittle structures.
A project funded by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research.
Project: The PhD project stands at the crossroads between observational seismology, regional tectonics, mathematics of pattern recognition, and physics of complex networks.
The aim is to provide new catalogs of absolute locations, magnitudes and focal mechanisms of earthquakes in highly active seismic areas, and feed pattern recognition algorithms with this information in order to reconstruct the 3D structure of the underlying fault network, incorporating the slip field. Those results will serve, possibly combined with a wealth of other independent data, to invert for the spatially variable stress field tensor, but also to use sophisticated pattern recognition techniques combined with mechanical principles in order to put in evidence tectonic faulting structures over which large and great earthquakes may occur in the future.
Research environment: Founded in 1855, ETH Zürich today offers researchers an inspiring environment and students a comprehensive education as one of the leading international universities for technology and the natural sciences. The successful candidate will be under the supervision of Pr. Didier Sornette (Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks and associated with the department of Earth Sciences) and Pr. Edi Kissling (Institute of Geophysics) as well as Dr. Guy Ouillon and several post-doctoral researchers in our groups. An important aspect of the project will be the interdisciplinary interaction with scientists from those two institutes.
Living: Zürich is the largest city of Switzerland, bordered by its famous lake and surrounded by the Alps mountains. It has a large student population and offers many cultural and recreational activities and a high standard of living, often rated number 1 among its peers in the World.
Qualifications: We are looking for a candidate with a high motivation and strong quantitative skills, who also has the ability to take an interdisciplinary perspective and work with scientists from other fields. We expect a serious background in seismology and statistics, programming skills and acquaintance with mathematical software (MATLAB, Python and similar), as well as a consummate fluency in English. Candidates should hold at the minimum a master degree (or equivalent) in Geophysics, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Sciences or related areas.
Conditions: The monthly salary is 3920 ChF the first year and increases to 4170 ChF the third year. The position is available immediately. We are striving to increase the share of women in the university and strongly encourage women to apply. Severely disabled applicants with equal qualification and aptitude are given preferential consideration.
Application: Applications should include a CV, a letter of motivation, the master thesis and/or any other relevant scientific manuscript authored by the candidate (paper, preprint, recommendation letters...), and should be sent electronically until 31 May 2017 to: 
Dr. Guy Ouillon
Email: lithophyse@neuf.fr
For further information, please contact Dr. Guy Ouillon.