Food Culture Assistant - DTU Biosustain

Are you  passionate about food and flavour? Eager to help tackle some of our most pressing global challenges? Excited by the idea of working and learning at the intersection of science, cooking, sustainability, and food culture in a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research environment? Then join us as our new Food Culture Assistant!

The Sustainable Food Innovation Group (SFI) was founded in 2021 to address interconnected food systems challenges—diminishing diversity, inequitable production and distribution, knowledge privatisation, nutritional depletion, blandness—through interdisciplinary research, product development, and knowledge-sharing. We recently launched our website and Instagram, where we share knowledge and facilitate public engagement around fermentation, food innovation, sustainability, and interdisciplinarity. We are looking for a Food Culture Assistant to join our team to support the management of these platforms and assist other creative forms of public engagement and food cultural research projects.

The job
As SFI’s Food Culture Assistant you will:

• Support day-to-day management of our Instagram account and building up of our social media presence, in collaboration with team members
• Support management and development of our website
• Write articles for our website, including documentation of our culinary R&D
• Assist with food cultural research project management, as well as potential support with literature reviews, interviews, and qualitative data processing
• Support creative dissemination of our work, for example through the development of a series of zines

Our expectations of you
You will have some experience with basic website maintenance and social media, particularly Instagram, and some relevant experience with writing for a general audience.

You will have excellent written English. If you know some Danish that is a plus but it is not mandatory.

You will have skills navigating academic papers, and a Bachelor’s or Master’s in a relevant discipline or equivalent experience. The tasks and salary level will be adjusted according to your degree level and experience. Please elaborate on your educational background and experience in your cover letter.

The ideal candidate will also:

• have basic knowledge about food science, food microbiology, fermentation, food systems and sustainability issues
• have some experience making fermentations, traditional and/or novel
• be able to work independently and with others
• be systematic, organised and a clear communicator 
• be comfortable in an interdisciplinary environment
• be creative and interested in non-traditional forms of research and communications including engagement with the arts and futures thinking
• be patient, charitable and playful (key qualities for interdisciplinary work)
• have basic photography and photo editing skills
• be excited to learn any of these knowledges and/or skills they may not yet have

What we offer in return
DTU is a leading technical university globally recognized for the excellence of its research, education, innovation and scientific advice. We offer an engaging and rewarding job in an international, cutting-edge research environment. We place great emphasis on personal and professional development, so there will be ample opportunities for skills development and continuing education as part of the position, according to your career goals.

Salary and appointment terms
The appointment will be based on the collective agreement with the Confederation of Professional Associations (AC) or other relevant union. The salary will be agreed upon with the relevant union.

The position is full time and is based at DTU’s Lyngby campus.

The starting date is as soon as possible.

The position lasts until 31 December 2025.

Application and contact
Please submit your online application no later than 30 December 2024.  Open the “Apply now” link, fill out the form and attach the following materials:

• Cover letter, including links to any websites you have put together and/or managed, and any Instagram accounts you manage/have managed, and indicate when
• CV
• Academic diplomas (if applicable)
• Degree transcripts (if applicable)
• One letter of reference with referee’s contact information
• Two samples of your writing in English: one for a general audience and one of your academic writing

If you would like additional information about the position, please contact Food Culture Specialist Eliot Beeby at [email protected]  

You can read more about DTU Biosustain at www.biosustain.dtu.dk 

Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.

All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, religion or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.

Sustainable Food Innovation Group (SFI)
The Sustainable Food Innovation Group uses culinary research & development to make flavourful sustainable foods, open scientific research to study how they work, and social science and artistic practice to understand and experiment with how they can fit into food culture. We develop products for implementation and as design interventions that can help better understand food systems problems—encouraging thinking about edibility, food diversity, and flavour in more complex, just, ecologically resonant ways.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (DTU Biosustain)
Recent progress in our ability to read and write genomic code, combined with advances in automation, analytics and data science, has fundamentally changed the scope and ambition of harnessing the potential of biological systems. Big data approaches and analysis of biological systems are key research instruments at the Center. DTU Biosustain utilizes these advances for microbial cell factory design to foster sustainable lifestyles in relation to three application areas: Sustainable Chemicals, Natural Products, and Microbial Foods.

Technology for people
DTU develops technology for people. With our international elite research and study programmes, we are helping to create a better world and to solve the global challenges formulated in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Hans Christian Ørsted founded DTU in 1829 with a clear mission to develop and create value using science and engineering to benefit society. That mission lives on today. DTU has 13,500 students and 6,000 employees. We work in an international atmosphere and have an inclusive, evolving, and informal working environment. DTU has campuses in all parts of Denmark and in Greenland, and we collaborate with the best universities around the world.