Job Description

Grade UE07: 41,064 to 48,822 per annum

CSE / School of Biological Sciences / Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences

Full Time: 35 hours per week

Fixed Term: 30 months

We are looking for a Post-Doctoral Research Associate to map the early radiation of land plants using a combination of 3D imaging approaches, surveys of fossil datasets and through a collaboration with deep time ecological modellers. The position is based in the group of Dr Sandy Hetherington ( The Molecular Palaeobotany and Evolution Group ) in the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences.

The Opportunity:

The fossil record provides a biased and fragmentary view of early land plant evolution. This severely limits our ability to make predictions about the radiation of major groups and the impact that plants had on the Earth System. One approach to overcome the limitation of the fossil record is to use deep time ecological modelling to help simulate the early radiation of land plants. We aim to do this here in project "MapRad: Mapping the radiation of land plants to establish their impact on the Earth System", a collaboration between the lab of Dr Sandy Hetherington at the University of Edinburgh and Professor Benjamin Mills and Dr Khushboo Gurung at the University of Leeds. We are looking for an enthusiastic Post-Doctoral Research Associate to join the Edinburgh based team of Sandy Hetherington to lead efforts to quantitively characterise key morphological characteristics of fossil plants and assemble data on their ecology and global distribution. This fossil evidence will provide new data on the biology and physiology of early plants and will enable us to simulate their global distributions in the ecological model.

Your skills and attributes for success:

PhD in an appropriate biological or geological science Experience of studying Devonian fossil plants Experience of using novel imaging approaches on fossils.

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For informal enquiries please contact the hiring manager Sandy Hetherington at sandy.hetherington@ed.ac.uk or the School of Biological Sciences Staffing / HR Team at BiologyHR@ed.ac.uk .

Application Information

Please ensure you include the following documents in your application:

CV Cover letter

As a valued member of our team you can expect:

A competitive salary. An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community. Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, competitive pension schemes, staff discounts, and family-friendly initiatives. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page (opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits.

Championing equality, diversity and inclusion

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.





Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages (opens new browser tab).





The University may be able to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. This will depend on a number of factors specific to the successful applicant.

Key dates to note

The closing date for applications is

3rd November 2025.

Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone.