Research assistantships are available at the MS or Ph.D. level at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to participate in a recently funded NSF project investigating the effects of stormwater management on ecosystem function in urban watersheds. The overall goal is to better understand and predict the impacts of stormwater management on receiving streams over a range of spatial and temporal scales through a combination of field based research and watershed scale hydrologic modeling. This interdisciplinary project will link (1) mass-balance based monitoring of individual BMPs, (2) ecosystem processes (nutrient uptake, metabolism, temperature and biological indices) in the receiving stream and (3) monitored and modeled watershed outputs of flow, nitrogen, and carbon.
Applicants interested in aquatic biogeochemistry, hydrology, stream ecology and/or watershed modeling are encouraged to apply. Experience with field methods to measure nutrient spiraling and metabolism, data processing and analysis, watershed modeling and GIS are a plus. Students will have flexibility to develop independent research questions within the context of this project that broadly address the interactions among hydrology, biogeochemistry and ecology in aquatic ecosystems. Qualifications: degree in biology, ecology, environmental engineering, hydrology or related field is required. Successful applicants should have a strong interest in working in an interdisciplinary research environment, be creative, motivated and capable of working well both independently and cooperatively and possess strong communication and quantitative skills. Competitive stipends and tuition waivers are available for highly motivated students. For more information on admission requirements and deadlines, visit http://graduateschool.uncc.edu. Additional information about the McMillan Lab can be found at http://www.coe.uncc.edu/~smcmil10<http://www.coe.uncc.edu/%7Esmcmil10> . Opportunities exist for collaboration with the labs of Sandra Clinton and Anne Jefferson at UNC Charlotte who are collaborators on the project. A doctoral/research intensive institution, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is the fourth largest of the 16 constituent members of the University of North Carolina and the largest institution of higher education in the Charlotte region. UNC Charlotte is fully engaged in the discovery, dissemination, synthesis, and application of knowledge and aspires to national and international excellence in these activities. UNC Charlotte offers 89 bachelor’s degree programs, 62 master’s degree programs, and 18 doctoral programs. UNC Charlotte’s faculty includes more than 900 members, with 85% of the full-time teaching faculty holding the highest degrees attainable in their field. Interested students with strong motivation to succeed in research should contact Sara McMillan via email ([email protected]). Please submit a statement of career goals and research interests, full CV, unofficial transcripts and GRE scores, and contact information for three potential references. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until suitable candidates are found. The anticipated start date is flexible, but should be sometime between January and August 2011.
