Research Fellow in Design Optimisation of Safe and Effective Beehives for Sustainable Agricultural Pollination

Do you have a strong background in computational and experimental fluid dynamics and heat transfer and a knowledge of and interest in beekeeping? Are your skills relevant to on the flow and heat transfer within beehives? Do you want to further your career in one of the UK’s leading research-intensive universities?

The beekeeping industry is still dominated by 1850’s technology and is unable to meet its significant economic, environmental and regulatory pressures. Beekeepers want their honeybees to survive and thrive in a wide range of climates. There is now significant interest in insulated hives, in order to counteract the increasing rates of mortality in managed bee colonies. Honeybee keepers do not currently possess the information to choose which hives perform best thermally and manufacturers of hives do not have the tools to measure or optimise their designs. With climate change putting honeybees under increased thermal stress the demand for hives that thermally buffer the bees within will only increase.

This is a short-term position to work with an Australian beehive manufacturer, HiveIQ Pty, the provider of the HiveIQ agritech system, and their team of beekeepers, industrial designers, and manufacturing experts to create extensively-validated and scientifically-rigorous guidelines for safe and effective beekeeping practice. The project will combine the University’s expertise in beehive design, flow modelling and heat transfer and design optimization with HiveIQ Pty’s in design, manufacturing and sensing techniques to develop the most advanced, scientifically rigorous guidelines and software tools for hive design and configuration.

You will have a background with strong skills in analytical and computational modelling of flow and heat transfer relevant to the study of beehives, relevant experimental experience and extensive knowledge of and interest in beekeeping issues. You will use your skills in the interdisciplinary research area to communicate your findings to beekeeping conferences and societies.

We are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:

Harvey Thompson, Professor of Computational Fluid Dynamics

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 2136 or email: H.M.Thompson@leeds.ac.uk

Please note: that this post may be suitable for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route but first-time applicants might need to qualify for salary concessions.  For more information, please visit the Government’s Skilled Worker visa page.

For research and academic posts, we will consider eligibility under the Global Talent visa. For more information, please visit the Government’s page, Apply for the Global Talent visa.

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