PhD Assistantship in Avian Population Ecology We seek a self-motivated and creative doctoral student to conduct research on the population ecology of migratory songbirds at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. Fieldwork will start in May 2015 and the student will enroll at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in the 2015 spring semester. This dissertation research will be part of multi-investigator project involving UMBC, the Smithsonian Institution, Cornell University, and Wellesley College. The student will be co-advised by Dr. Colin Studds at UMBC and Dr. Scott Sillett at the Smithsonian, and be supported by both teaching and research assistantships.
A key project objective is to understand how songbird population dynamics are shaped by environmental variation, including cyclic fluctuation in climate, tree mast, and predator abundance. The student will have freedom to develop a thesis topic, so long as the dissertation overlaps with this objective. We welcome applications from prospective students with a record of academic excellence, a strong interest in avian ecology and demography, and extensive training in the observation, capture, and handling of wild birds. Ideal candidates will have a Masters degree, skill with quantitative methods, at least one publication, and graduate coursework in statistics and ecology. The successful applicant will need to meet the entrance requirements for doctoral candidates in UMBCs Department of Geography and Environmental Systems <http://ges.umbc.edu/>.
