Joint PhD Position in Urban Green Exposure & Health Analytics

Overview

KU Leuven – Division Forest, Nature & Landscape. The PhD candidate will spend approximately half of their time at the Division of Forest, Nature & Landscape at KU Leuven, an internationally recognised research group with strong expertise in urban ecology, green infrastructure, remote sensing, GIS, and environmental health. The division combines fundamental and applied research with a strong focus on societal impact, and works closely with policymakers, urban planners, and other societal stakeholders.

The candidate will also be embedded within the Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation group at KU Leuven, led by Prof. Raf Aerts, offering complementary perspectives on how urban green structure and quality relate to ecological processes and co-benefits for human health.

The candidate will spend the remaining portion of the program at the University of Essex, embedded within the Institute of Public Health & Wellbeing (IPHW). The IPHW conducts leading research in public health, wellbeing, and health inequalities, and brings together expertise in social, biological, and environmental determinants of health; interventions, outcomes, evaluation and policy; wellbeing and health promotion; and human rights, community participation and voice.

Urban green spaces are crucial for climate resilience, biodiversity and public health. The BRANCH project aims to advance beyond simple indicators like percentage cover or NDVI by developing human-centred green exposure metrics that reflect how people see, access and experience greenery and how these experiences relate to health outcomes. The project combines conceptual work on green space typologies, advanced geospatial analytics, AI-based image analysis, citizen science and large-scale health data to link exposure metrics with health patterns in millions of people in Belgium.

This joint PhD will be carried out at KU Leuven and the University of Essex, with time allocated between Essex (2 years) and Leuven (2 years).

You will play a central role in advancing BRANCH’s human-centred understanding of urban green spaces and their health benefits. You will help develop a health-oriented typology of urban green that integrates ecological characteristics, spatial configuration, and the way people actually see and access greenery in daily environments. This requires synthesising insights from ecology, landscape architecture, environmental psychology and public health, and engaging closely with planners and health professionals to ensure real-world relevance.

You will contribute to measuring green exposure from a human perspective by combining street-level information, citizen-generated data, and spatial analyses to assess visibility, accessibility and equitable distribution of different kinds of green spaces. A key part of your work will be to link these exposure metrics to large-scale health datasets, exploring how different forms of green relate to mental and physical health outcomes across diverse population groups.

You will collaborate with epidemiologists to shape exposure variables, analytical frameworks and interpretation.

Throughout the project, you will engage with stakeholders and citizen groups, contributing to co-creation workshops, advisory boards and communication activities. Your work will help translate scientific insights into practical guidance for healthier, more equitable cities.

We are looking for an enthusiastic researcher who enjoys combining conceptual thinking with hands-on data analysis and societal relevance.

• MSc degree in Bioscience Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Public Health, Data Science, Remote Sensing, Geomatics or a closely related discipline
• Strong analytical and programming skills (e.g. Python or similar)
• Experience in at least two of the following areas: geospatial analysis / GIS; remote sensing or street-level imagery; environmental exposure assessment; epidemiology or health data analysis
• Good written and oral communication skills in English
• Ability to work both independently and as part of an international, interdisciplinary team

• Experience with computer vision or deep learning (e.g. PyTorch, Tensor Flow)
• Familiarity with street view imagery or other street-level/imaging datasets
• Background or interest in urban health, environmental epidemiology, or social determinants of health
• Affinity with citizen science, participatory mapping or stakeholder engagement
• Interest in translating scientific insights into policy and practice

• A 4-year full-time joint PhD fellowship, with a formal mid-term evaluation after approx. 12 months
• Joint supervision by Prof. Ben Somers and Prof. Raf Aerts at KU Leuven, and Dr. Ruoyu Wang at the University of Essex
• You will be enrolled in a joint doctoral programme, spending approximately two years at the University of Essex and two years at KU Leuven, benefiting from close collaboration with both research groups.
• Integration into two dynamic,…