I'm just the messenger here -- please direct all inquiries to Dr. Krishna Pacifici ([email protected])
*PhD Assistantship - Tropical avian ecology and conservation decision-making: exploring the influences of landscape level disturbances on species distributions.* We are recruiting a PhD student in the fall of 2014 to work on a unique project focused on understanding geographic variation in avian population dynamics as a function of landscape level environmental stressors (e.g., land-use, climate) in order to inform conservation decisions. The student would join the Collazo and Pacifici research lab and would collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of ecologists (Collazo and Pacifici) and statisticians (Brian Reich and Eric Laber, NCSU) to develop and apply Bayesian hierarchical population and community level models to inform a conservation design project in Puerto Rico. The centerpiece of this project is a habitat conservation strategy that ensures the long-term persistence of resident avifauna. The final outcome will be a decision model that will identify spatially-explicit actions to increase the amount of protected land from the actual 8% to 15% in the island. The student will be housed in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University (http://projects.cals.ncsu.edu/appliedecology/). The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in avian ecology, birding skills, but also a strong background in quantitative ecology and population demography. Applicants with previous experience in the following areas will be given priority: estimating demographic parameters (e.g., mark-recapture), presence/absence (e.g., occupancy), Bayesian hierarchical modeling, stochastic optimization and decision-making for natural resource management (i.e., Adaptive management), managing large databases, and programming skills (preferably R, BUGS/JAGS, and GIS). An M.S. degree in Ecology, Wildlife Biology, Statistics, or other similar fields is preferred. Interested applicants should send a cover letter including a description of their research interests, CV including GRE scores and GPA, and names and contact information for 3 references to Drs. Jaime A. Collazo ( [email protected]) and Krishna Pacifici ([email protected]), or at 225 David Clark Labs, Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7617. Applications should be submitted by May 1, 2014 at the latest. We will review applications as they arrive.
