Postdoctoral Researcher in environmental epidemiology

Do you want to contribute to improving human health?

Would you like to help generate new knowledge on how heat, air pollution, and climate-related environmental exposures affect women’s, newborn and child health? We are now recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to join the Unit of Environmental Epidemiology at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM), Karolinska Institutet.

IMM is a department at Karolinska Institutet and an interdisciplinary research institution within the broad field of environmental medicine. IMM conducts cutting edge research within the areas of environmental and occupational medicine, toxicology, physiology, epidemiology, and biostatistics with the aim to clarify how environmental and lifestyle factors affect our health and which role genes have. IMM also serves as a scientific advisor to public authorities within the area of environmental medicine and IMM scientists participate in national and international expert groups.

The epidemiological research at IMM is focused on advancing knowledge about disease etiology and prognosis with an emphasis on environmental and lifestyle factors, and on methodological development and stringency. The unit of Environmental Epidemiology is focused on epidemiological research concerning the health effects of ambient air pollution, ambient temperature, community noise and green structure as well as causes of adverse maternal complications during pregnancy. Experience and knowledge exist within the research group regarding epidemiological designs and innovative statistical approaches. Many projects are conducted in international collaboration. We often participate in environmental health risk assessments for national as well as international organizations and authorities. These assessments are often based on research conducted within the unit.

Your mission

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will play a central role in advancing research on the effects of climate-related environmental exposures, particularly heat and ambient air pollution, on maternal, perinatal, and child health. A key component of your role will be the development and application of advanced epidemiological and statistical methods to assess both the independent and combined effects of environmental exposures. This includes modelling complex exposure-response relationships, accounting for interactions between multiple environmental stressors, and identifying critical windows of susceptibility during pregnancy. You will work with, compare, and further develop innovative analytical approaches, including distributed lag non-linear models (DLNM), causal inference methods (e.g. g-methods), and Bayesian hierarchical and spatiotemporal models.

You will contribute to the integration and analysis of multiple data sources, including nationwide Swedish health registers (e.g. the Swedish Pregnancy Register), environmental exposure databases, and international datasets. This will involve linkage of large-scale health and environmental data, harmonisation of variables across settings, and implementation of common data models to enable cross-country comparisons. Importantly, the position is embedded within a broader effort to establish and formalise an international research consortium on climate change and maternal, newborn, and child health. You will actively contribute to this initiative by supporting the development of harmonised methodologies, participating in collaborative projects across countries, and helping to build a scalable research infrastructure for future global studies. Your responsibilities will also include contributing to scientific publications, dissemination of results, and collaboration within multidisciplinary teams. The postdoctoral researcher is also expected to undertake a limited amount of teaching and supervise students.

This is a two-year fixed-term position.

Your profile

To be eligible for employment as a postdoctoral researcher, a PhD or a foreign degree deemed to be equivalent to a Swedish PhD is required. This eligibility requirement must be fulfilled at the latest at the time of the employment decision. Completion of your doctoral degree within the last three years is considered an advantage. If there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier.

Eligibility for this position requires a PhD in epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, biomedicine, or a related quantitative field, together with formal education in epidemiology and biostatistics and demonstrated research experience in environmental epidemiology. Applicants must have a high level of proficiency in statistical programming in R and experience working with large and complex datasets. Excellent oral and written communication skills in English are also required.

Strong merit will be given to applicants with advanced quantitative and methodological skills in analysing time-varying environmental exposures. This includes experience with statistical methods for modelling non-linear and delayed exposure-response relationships, identifying critical windows of susceptibility, and/or assessing interactions or combined effects of multiple environmental exposures. Experience addressing methodological challenges such as exposure measurement error, uncertainty in predicted exposures, missing data, or selection bias will also be considered a strong merit.

Additional merits include experience with simulation studies and advanced epidemiological or statistical approaches. Experience developing reproducible analytical workflows and well-documented code for collaborative research is also considered a merit. Experience in environmental exposure assessment, particularly for air pollution and/or temperature, is considered an additional merit. Relevant approaches may include land-use regression, dispersion modelling, machine learning, remote sensing, GIS, or high-resolution spatial and spatiotemporal modelling. Experience working in interdisciplinary and/or international research collaborations is also considered a merit.

Beyond scientific qualifications, particular emphasis will be placed on personal suitability. The candidate should be organised and responsible and able to work both independently and collaboratively.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location: Solna

Choose to work at KI – Ten reasons why

Petter Ljungman's research group- Health effects of the Ambient Environment | Karolinska Institutet

Application

An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

• PhD certificate
• A complete resumé, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
• A complete list of publications
• A summary of current work (no more than one page)

KI applies individual and differentiated salary setting in accordance with our collective agreements RALS and RALS-T

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Want to make a difference? Join us and contribute to better health for all!

Anställningsform: tidsbegränsad anställning | Anställningens omfattning: heltid | Antal lediga befattningar: 1 | Sysselsättningsgrad: 100% | Ort: Solna | Län: Stockholms län | Land: Sweden | Referensnummer: STÖD 2-4134/2026 | Kontakt: Jeroen de Bont , Jeroen de Bont , | Facklig företrädare: Bodil Moberg , ST-OFR , Bodil Moberg , ST-OFR , Anda Gliga, SACO , Anda Gliga, SACO , Anne Boström, SEKO , Anne Boström, SEKO , | Publicerat: 2026-10-15 | Sista ansökningsdag: 2026-11-04