PhD Opportunity (Scholarship Available)
Co-designing Decision-Support Tools for Nature-based Solutions in Climate Resilience
This interdisciplinary PhD project will investigate how decision-support tools can enable the large-scale adoption of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) through land-use planning and spatial decision-making. The successful candidate will join a research team developing innovative approaches to support the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of NbS for climate resilience.
Potential research approaches include:
- Spatial analysis and GIS
- Land-use and regional spatial planning
- Nature-based Solution performance assessment
- Stakeholder engagement and co-design
- Policy and planning analysis
Location: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Funding: Three years of full-time funding, including tuition fees, a stipend of NZ$35,000 per year, and fieldwork expenses.
Supervisors: Professor Silvia Serrao-Neumann and Dr Wenjing Zhang
Application deadline: 5:00 pm (NZT), 31 August, 2026
Interested applicants should send a CV, academic transcripts, and a brief statement outlining their research interests and alignment with the project to Professor Silvia Serrao-Neumann silvia.serrao-neumann@waikato.ac.nz.