PhD Position on Defining and Measuring Nutritional Exposures: Philosophizing with the science of early life effects of nutrition-microbiome interactions
The University of Bordeaux is offering a 3-year doctoral position in philosophy hosted by the ImmunoConcept Lab. The PhD will be conducted in the frame of doing philosophy in science, with an aim to use philosophy to help advance research into the early life effects of nutrition on host-microbiome interactions. The candidate will be a central member of an ongoing research project, participating in protocol and study design decisions, and contributing directly to the study results and their interpretation. Specifically, this project is designed to work in parallel with a science PhD that is already funded and underway. The project will be co-supervised by Jonathan Sholl, a philosopher of biomedicine and nutrition science at University of Bordeaux, and Florian Poullenot, a gastroenterologist and professor of nutrition who is working at Bordeaux University Hospital and is a member of ImmunoConcept. The starting date will be 1 September 2027. The scientific question is how to quantify exposures to ultra-processed foods in early life, and to characterize the relationships between such exposures and the microbiota, metabolome, and intestinal homeostasis. The PhD candidate will be invited to explore various conceptual and empirical questions that this work raises, such as clarifying the notion of nutritional exposures, determining whether the Nova food classification is the best tool for this project, examining how to link nutritional exposures to specific outcomes like gut dysbiosis or host-microbiome development, as well as questions about responsibility of actors within complex food systems. The candidate need not have a specific training in these domains but should demonstrate the capacity to engage with conceptual dimensions of scientific research, either coming from a philosophical or scientific background. As such, some knowledge of related fields (microbiology, nutrition, physiology, epidemiology), and/or their philosophical counterparts, can be very useful. Interested candidates are invited to send their CV and a letter of intention that outlines how they would approach this topic. Short-listed candidates will be called for interviews. Please send these (and any questions) to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> and [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> by 15 April 2027. A more detailed description of the project and the scientific context can be found on our website: https://philinbiomed.cnrs.fr/jobs/phd-position-on-defining-and-measuring-nutritional-exposures-philosophizing-with-the-science-of-early-life-effects-of-nutrition-microbiome-interactions Dr Kate Lynch Senior Lecturer, School of History and Philosophy of Science Room 389 Carslaw Building (F07) | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 [email protected] --------- SydPhil mailing list To unsubscribe, change your membership options, find answers to common problems, or visit our online archives, please go to the list information page: https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil
