DREAM JOB ALERT: CHOCOLATE SCIENTIST

BE THE THE HERO OF CHOCOHOLICS EVERYWHERE BY FIGURING OUT HOW TO KEEP CHOCOLATE FROM MELTING.

BY RACHEL GILLETT

If you’ve ever unknowingly dropped some chocolate on your lap, you can sympathize. The sad truth is that the instant chocolate touches your hands--or face or clothes or any other extension of yourself--it begins to melt, quickly. And while melting in your mouth is a great feature of eating chocolate, it makes shipping and stocking it harder.

This has apparently proven enough of a problem that the University of Cambridge is looking for a solution. According to this job posting, the university is on the hunt for a doctoral student willing to get down and dirty with the rich confection. The end goal of this 3.5-year stint is to figure out what would allow chocolate to remain solid and delicious in warm climates.

While the project is mainly experimental--meaning you’ll likely get to play with a lot of chocolate in its various stages of meltiness--acquiring this multidisciplinary PhD won’t be all fun and games.

Apart from having experience running experiments, candidates must be able to meet the university’s graduate admissions entrance requirements, which is no easy feat considering less than 23% of last year’s grad school applicants were accepted. Applicants should also have top marks in areas such as physics, chemistry, materials science, or engineering. And sadly, if you aren’t an EU national, you needn’t bother applying.

But if you do meet all the criteria, you better hurry: Applications must be submitted by noon U.K. time on August 29. Just be sure you impress them with your already superior knowledge of chocolate, compliments of Fast Company.