Postdoc in Public Engagement around Personalized Medicine (Let's Get Personal)
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Postdoc in Public Engagement around Personalized Medicine (Let's Get Personal)
The University of Copenhagen is seeking a highly motivated and talented Postdoc fellow to commence on February 1, 2026, or after agreement in the Arnold Group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen.
The Postdoc fellowship is part of the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program.
About Us
Medical Museion: The Postdoc position is based at Medical Museion, which is a University Museum that combines public programming with an interdisciplinary research group. Our overlapping research fields are medical humanities, history and philosophy of science, Science and Technology Studies (STS), museology, anthropology and cultural studies, which we combine to research fundamental questions about the relationship between medical science, clinical medicine and human experience. Our research interests also inform our production of exhibitions, events, collection projects, and online communication and see them as rich sites of investigation.
Medical Museion is a section at the Department of Public Health, whose focus is to improve the health of the population and the connections between health and society. The Department provides the scientific foundation for efforts that aim to improve public health, both nationally and globally, and to create greater insight into the links between health, the individual and society as well as the ethical, equity and political implications
CBMR: Medical Museion forms program 4 (‘Cardiometabolic Research in Society & Culture’) at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), which is an academic research Center that pioneers groundbreaking research towards better cardiometabolic health. Through collaborative interdisciplinary research from single-cell genomics to whole-body systems, CBMR aims to transform the basic understanding of cardiometabolic health and accelerate its translation into prevention and treatment strategies. The Center’s uniquely multi- and interdisciplinary approach combines research in genetics, physiology and pharmacology, to better understand the complex interplay of the many factors that drive cardiometabolic disease. You can learn more in the Executive Summary of CBMR's Strategy 2024–2028. CBMR was established in 2010 at the Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences and has been located in the Maersk Tower at Panum since 2017. The around 250 employees create an international, highly collaborative research environment across disciplines.
The Project: Public Engagement around Personalized Medicine (Let’s Get Personal)
How can our understanding of precision medicine be enriched through a humanities approach to individual experiences of health? And more specifically, how can a public exhibition enable visitors fruitfully to engage with that understanding? This enquiry lies at the hinge between these questions. It will be hosted within Medical Museion’s (5 years +) engagement project Let’s Get Personal: a curatorial initiative based on a major new gallery that will explore personalized medicine in historical, social and cultural contexts.
Medicine is currently being thoroughly personalized. Work on new precise treatments and supporting infrastructures has generated considerable excitement (some would even argue hype) in science and policy circles, and this has begun to stir the public imagination. These recent innovations have potentially ground-breaking implications for the future of health and medicine; but there is, and always has been, a tension between actual experiences of being sick and less personal attempts to understand and treat diseases scientifically. Let’s Get Personal is a form of ‘public enquiry’ that combines collaborative and humanities-oriented research with stakeholder workshops, live public events and a major exhibition.
It’s a project that will intricately link the familiar with the unprecedented, blending a feel for the past, understandings of what’s happening now, with varied speculations about the future. The public comprehension of and involvement in personalized health is crucial to the science itself, as well as to its translation and eventual public health impact; but the ideas and science behind it are unknown or baffling to much of the public. Building on Medical Museion’s exceptional track record for discipline-crossing initiatives, this combined research and engagement project aims to address that through an exhibition and public programming that is informative, innovative and popular. The role of the Postdoc is to provide a knowledge base on some aspects of personalized medicine as well as a backbone of practice-oriented research to accompany this ambitious museum-wide initiative.
As a public engagement project, Let’s Get Personal will make the most of its site-specific location within a University Museum, drawing on the potency of historic and contemporary objects to evoke and shed light on personal experiences of health, illness and medical treatment. It will also, through varied and comparative methods of display, reflect how public dissemination of science is evolving: from the model of public understanding of science (PUS) based on a linear transfer of knowledge from experts to audiences; to the more reciprocal ideas of ‘engagement’ between producers and audiences that have overtaken PUS; and on to more recent efforts to foreground issues of social justice based on identity in an ‘ethical turn’. The curatorial approach of Let’s Get Personal will include a diverse range of display techniques juxtaposed in a ‘boutique-style’ gallery (akin to a collection of ‘essays’ rather than a monograph), which will encourage visitors to explore this broad topic from multiple perspectives and through different modes of presentation. The Postdoc will therefore also investigate the implications and effectiveness of different ways that personalized medicine can be encountered.
The postdoc research will be integrated into three project stages: (a) development of broad themes and pilot initiatives; (b) curatorial production of a major new thematic gallery (late-2027 launch); and (c) use of exhibition as a platform for further public events, stakeholder workshops, podcasts, and visitor evaluation. Matching those stages, the Postdoc’s approach will evolve methodologically from literature reviews and companion enquiries through investigations around exhibition making processes and finally on to observations and analysis of visitor/stakeholder engagement.
Job Description
Let’s Get Personal is an ambitious transdisciplinary project. Part of the work of the Postdoc will be to help ensure the public project is enriched by research already being done on personalized medicine across a number of scientific and humanities disciplines. Inspired by those insights, the Postdoc will contribute to, as well as analyze, the experimental curatorial (‘boutique’-style) methodology that simultaneously employs a diverse range of communication and audience engagement strategies. Working alongside other exhibition curators, they will be particularly focused on two or three specific exhibits (‘boutiques’), helping to develop these exhibition sub-themes.
They will also work collaboratively with Medical Museion’s Programing & Communications as well as Collections teams to design public and stakeholder workshops that employ object-based learning and co-curation methodologies (specifically in our ‘Appendix’ initiative). They will also be involved with plans for evaluation and knowledge-sharing around Let’s Get Personal, helping disseminate findings across several academic and professional sectors, as well as extending our philosophical interest in the notion of ‘museum as method’. Finally, it is expected that the Postdoc will be involved in teaching, helping Medical Museion deliver its expected hours of tuition, primarily within the fields of qualitative methods, theory of science and STS.
In short, the Postdoc will balance four overlapping goals:
Profile
The fellowship is aimed at early/mid-career researchers with a background in medical humanities, history/philosophy of science, museology, cultural theory and/or related fields. An acquaintance with issues surrounding the development of personalized medicine will advantageous. We are also particularly interested in candidates who have some background and experience in exhibition, museum and cultural practice.
Required qualifications:
Eligibility
The Postdoc fellowships within the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program are open for applicants with a PhD degree awarded from a university outside of Denmark. The program is also open for applicants with a Danish PhD degree who can document at least 12 months of full-time research experience from outside Denmark during or after the PhD studies. The PhD degree has to be obtained before February 1, 2026. You are not eligible to apply for the program if you have been employed in a postdoctoral position for more than one year at the University of Copenhagen prior to the commencement of the fellowship.
Terms of Employment
The employment as Postdoc is a full-time position for 3 years. Starting date is February 1, 2026, or after agreement. Salary, pension and terms of employment will be in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated.
Non-Danish and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark for the last 10 years.
The position is covered by the Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities 2025.
Questions
For further information about the position, please contact Ken Arnold at kra@sund.ku.dk. Questions regarding the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program must be directed to Senior Advisor Sarah Christoffersen at sarah.christoffersen@sund.ku.dk. For questions regarding the recruitment procedure, please contact HR at hr-cbmr@adm.ku.dk.
The University of Copenhagen International Staff Mobility office offers support and assistance to all international researchers on all issues related to moving to and settling in Denmark.
Application Procedure
Your online application must be submitted in English via the ‘Apply now’ link below. Furthermore, your application must include the following documents/attachments – all in PDF format:
We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.
The Further Process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor. Once the assessment work has been completed, each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.
You can read about the recruitment process at www.employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process.
Interviews are tentatively planned for early November 2025.
The applicant will be assessed according to Ministerial Order No. 242 of March 13, 2012, on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.
The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the diversity of society and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their personal backgrounds.
The Postdoc fellowship is part of the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program.
About Us
Medical Museion: The Postdoc position is based at Medical Museion, which is a University Museum that combines public programming with an interdisciplinary research group. Our overlapping research fields are medical humanities, history and philosophy of science, Science and Technology Studies (STS), museology, anthropology and cultural studies, which we combine to research fundamental questions about the relationship between medical science, clinical medicine and human experience. Our research interests also inform our production of exhibitions, events, collection projects, and online communication and see them as rich sites of investigation.
Medical Museion is a section at the Department of Public Health, whose focus is to improve the health of the population and the connections between health and society. The Department provides the scientific foundation for efforts that aim to improve public health, both nationally and globally, and to create greater insight into the links between health, the individual and society as well as the ethical, equity and political implications
CBMR: Medical Museion forms program 4 (‘Cardiometabolic Research in Society & Culture’) at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), which is an academic research Center that pioneers groundbreaking research towards better cardiometabolic health. Through collaborative interdisciplinary research from single-cell genomics to whole-body systems, CBMR aims to transform the basic understanding of cardiometabolic health and accelerate its translation into prevention and treatment strategies. The Center’s uniquely multi- and interdisciplinary approach combines research in genetics, physiology and pharmacology, to better understand the complex interplay of the many factors that drive cardiometabolic disease. You can learn more in the Executive Summary of CBMR's Strategy 2024–2028. CBMR was established in 2010 at the Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences and has been located in the Maersk Tower at Panum since 2017. The around 250 employees create an international, highly collaborative research environment across disciplines.
The Project: Public Engagement around Personalized Medicine (Let’s Get Personal)
How can our understanding of precision medicine be enriched through a humanities approach to individual experiences of health? And more specifically, how can a public exhibition enable visitors fruitfully to engage with that understanding? This enquiry lies at the hinge between these questions. It will be hosted within Medical Museion’s (5 years +) engagement project Let’s Get Personal: a curatorial initiative based on a major new gallery that will explore personalized medicine in historical, social and cultural contexts.
Medicine is currently being thoroughly personalized. Work on new precise treatments and supporting infrastructures has generated considerable excitement (some would even argue hype) in science and policy circles, and this has begun to stir the public imagination. These recent innovations have potentially ground-breaking implications for the future of health and medicine; but there is, and always has been, a tension between actual experiences of being sick and less personal attempts to understand and treat diseases scientifically. Let’s Get Personal is a form of ‘public enquiry’ that combines collaborative and humanities-oriented research with stakeholder workshops, live public events and a major exhibition.
It’s a project that will intricately link the familiar with the unprecedented, blending a feel for the past, understandings of what’s happening now, with varied speculations about the future. The public comprehension of and involvement in personalized health is crucial to the science itself, as well as to its translation and eventual public health impact; but the ideas and science behind it are unknown or baffling to much of the public. Building on Medical Museion’s exceptional track record for discipline-crossing initiatives, this combined research and engagement project aims to address that through an exhibition and public programming that is informative, innovative and popular. The role of the Postdoc is to provide a knowledge base on some aspects of personalized medicine as well as a backbone of practice-oriented research to accompany this ambitious museum-wide initiative.
As a public engagement project, Let’s Get Personal will make the most of its site-specific location within a University Museum, drawing on the potency of historic and contemporary objects to evoke and shed light on personal experiences of health, illness and medical treatment. It will also, through varied and comparative methods of display, reflect how public dissemination of science is evolving: from the model of public understanding of science (PUS) based on a linear transfer of knowledge from experts to audiences; to the more reciprocal ideas of ‘engagement’ between producers and audiences that have overtaken PUS; and on to more recent efforts to foreground issues of social justice based on identity in an ‘ethical turn’. The curatorial approach of Let’s Get Personal will include a diverse range of display techniques juxtaposed in a ‘boutique-style’ gallery (akin to a collection of ‘essays’ rather than a monograph), which will encourage visitors to explore this broad topic from multiple perspectives and through different modes of presentation. The Postdoc will therefore also investigate the implications and effectiveness of different ways that personalized medicine can be encountered.
The postdoc research will be integrated into three project stages: (a) development of broad themes and pilot initiatives; (b) curatorial production of a major new thematic gallery (late-2027 launch); and (c) use of exhibition as a platform for further public events, stakeholder workshops, podcasts, and visitor evaluation. Matching those stages, the Postdoc’s approach will evolve methodologically from literature reviews and companion enquiries through investigations around exhibition making processes and finally on to observations and analysis of visitor/stakeholder engagement.
Job Description
Let’s Get Personal is an ambitious transdisciplinary project. Part of the work of the Postdoc will be to help ensure the public project is enriched by research already being done on personalized medicine across a number of scientific and humanities disciplines. Inspired by those insights, the Postdoc will contribute to, as well as analyze, the experimental curatorial (‘boutique’-style) methodology that simultaneously employs a diverse range of communication and audience engagement strategies. Working alongside other exhibition curators, they will be particularly focused on two or three specific exhibits (‘boutiques’), helping to develop these exhibition sub-themes.
They will also work collaboratively with Medical Museion’s Programing & Communications as well as Collections teams to design public and stakeholder workshops that employ object-based learning and co-curation methodologies (specifically in our ‘Appendix’ initiative). They will also be involved with plans for evaluation and knowledge-sharing around Let’s Get Personal, helping disseminate findings across several academic and professional sectors, as well as extending our philosophical interest in the notion of ‘museum as method’. Finally, it is expected that the Postdoc will be involved in teaching, helping Medical Museion deliver its expected hours of tuition, primarily within the fields of qualitative methods, theory of science and STS.
In short, the Postdoc will balance four overlapping goals:
- Investigate the understanding and development of personalized medicine in a cross-disciplinary academic landscape, starting with the work of colleagues and collaborators at CBMR and across the University of Copenhagen.
- Contribute to and do background research for Let’s Get Personal, specifically its effort to combine different approaches to public engagement across a ‘boutique-style’ initiative, focusing specifically on two or three sub-thematic exhibits.
- Engage with stakeholder and visitor participation in Let’s Get Personal, drawing on public-oriented research methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) as well as building on the object-based and co-creation methods developed in Medical Museion’s ‘Appendix’ initiative.
- Use insights collected in goals 1, 2 & 3 to contribute to the Arnold Group’s investigation of the ‘museum as method’– exploring how transdisciplinary understanding can most effectively be generated through a combination of research and museum work.
Profile
The fellowship is aimed at early/mid-career researchers with a background in medical humanities, history/philosophy of science, museology, cultural theory and/or related fields. An acquaintance with issues surrounding the development of personalized medicine will advantageous. We are also particularly interested in candidates who have some background and experience in exhibition, museum and cultural practice.
Required qualifications:
- PhD in a relevant humanities or social science discipline, e.g. medical humanities, history & philosophy of science, museology, anthropology or STS
- Knowledge of aspects of personalized medicine will be advantageous
- Experience of working in a cross-disciplinary environment and/or across sectors
- Confidence in designing own research methodologies
- Enthusiasm for collaborative and practice-oriented enquiry is essential, as is an ambitious, independent and critical mindset
- Experience of working in museums/cultural sector or other forms of public communication and engagement is highly desirable
- Ability to teach subjects at the Health and Medical Sciences Faculty, e.g. qualitative methods, theory of science, STS in relation to health or similar
- Must have excellent English communication skills, both written and oral
Eligibility
The Postdoc fellowships within the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program are open for applicants with a PhD degree awarded from a university outside of Denmark. The program is also open for applicants with a Danish PhD degree who can document at least 12 months of full-time research experience from outside Denmark during or after the PhD studies. The PhD degree has to be obtained before February 1, 2026. You are not eligible to apply for the program if you have been employed in a postdoctoral position for more than one year at the University of Copenhagen prior to the commencement of the fellowship.
Terms of Employment
The employment as Postdoc is a full-time position for 3 years. Starting date is February 1, 2026, or after agreement. Salary, pension and terms of employment will be in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated.
Non-Danish and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark for the last 10 years.
The position is covered by the Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities 2025.
Questions
For further information about the position, please contact Ken Arnold at kra@sund.ku.dk. Questions regarding the CBMR International PhD & Postdoc Program must be directed to Senior Advisor Sarah Christoffersen at sarah.christoffersen@sund.ku.dk. For questions regarding the recruitment procedure, please contact HR at hr-cbmr@adm.ku.dk.
The University of Copenhagen International Staff Mobility office offers support and assistance to all international researchers on all issues related to moving to and settling in Denmark.
Application Procedure
Your online application must be submitted in English via the ‘Apply now’ link below. Furthermore, your application must include the following documents/attachments – all in PDF format:
- Cover letter expressing the motivation and previous research experience of the applicant (max. one page)
- Curriculum vitae
- Copy of the PhD degree certificate and the Master’s degree certificate. In case the PhD has not yet been completed, a written statement from the supervisor is acceptable, confirming it will be obtained before February 1, 2026.
- List of publications
- References (name and contact details of at least two references)
We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.
The Further Process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor. Once the assessment work has been completed, each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.
You can read about the recruitment process at www.employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process.
Interviews are tentatively planned for early November 2025.
The applicant will be assessed according to Ministerial Order No. 242 of March 13, 2012, on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.
The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the diversity of society and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their personal backgrounds.