Dear colleagues,
Please help me distribute this through your channels – I’m recruiting for a
Ph.D. student position for my group, at the University of Arkansas’s
Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering:
Biological Engineering/Science PhD students wanted
I am recruiting a PhD and/or MS student to join the Landscape Flux Group
within the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at the
University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The research projects will
be based in rice agricultural systems in Arkansas, where we are working with
farmers to modify irrigation practices to reduce methane production while
saving water. The projects use flux budgeting methods to understand the
landscape’s ecological and hydrological functioning. This research will
connect between site dynamics and climate drivers with the goal of creating
simplified process representations used at the scale of the global climate
model. Resources are available for travel, equipment and international
collaboration. The projects are in collaboration with research scientists
from the USDA-ARS office in Jonesboro, AR.
These positions can start immediately, in January 2018, or in summer or fall
of 2018. Students should have a background in one or more of the following
disciplines: environmental or biological engineering, wetland ecology,
biogeochemistry, biometeorology, watershed or surface-water hydrology,
agricultural sciences or engineering. Some ability to code in Matlab or a
related language is beneficial, as is experience in gas flux measurements
using either chamber-based or eddy covariance methods. These positions will
require (eventually) a valid US driver’s license.
My research group develops budgets of water, energy, and carbon in different
wetland ecosystems. This research uses micrometeorological techniques to
evaluate land-atmosphere fluxes of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and
heat. For example, the eddy covariance technique is used to determine the
turbulent flux within atmospheric boundary layers, whereas hydrological
methods are used to estimate the horizontal fluxes of dissolved carbon in
surface and subsurface waterways. Together these methods quantify major
environmental fluxes that serve as inputs for process-based predictive
modeling and landscape management. More information on my group is available
on my website (http://you.uark.edu/brrunkle/).
Additional information about graduate admission requirements, possible
supplemental fellowships, and material about the department may be found
here:
http://bio-ag-engineering.uark.edu/Academic/Graduate_Program/index.php. A
non-engineering pathway for a Ph.D. is possible through the U of A’s
Environmental Dynamics program
(http://environmental-dynamics.uark.edu/index.php). Information about the
university and its land grant mission may be found here:
http://arkansas.edu/about/index.php. Furthermore, the university offers
competitive Doctoral Academy and Distinguished Doctoral Fellowships, which
are significant awards over and above the departmental stipend. Details on
these opportunities are available here:
http://graduate-recruitment.uark.edu/funding-degree/fellowships.php.
The University of Arkansas is in the middle of a significant period of
growth in both its student numbers and in raising its profile in research
and innovation. There are significant opportunities here for collaborations
on-campus in water, soil, nanotech, and other laboratories. Fayetteville,
Arkansas is a beautiful and culturally vibrant college town amidst the Ozark
Mountain Range, and it is regularly highly ranked on surveys of the Best
Places to Live. There are plentiful outdoor recreational activities, good
restaurants, and proximity to the world-class art collection of the Crystal
Bridges Museum of American Art.
Please email me, Dr. Benjamin Runkle ([email protected]), with a CV, GRE
scores, TOEFL if relevant, unofficial transcript, the names of two
references, a sample of your scientific writing, and a description of your
research interests. I am committed to EO/AA principles and a diverse workplace.
Benjamin R. K. Runkle
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR 72701
ENGR 231
Phone: 479-575-2878
[email protected]
https://you.uark.edu/brrunkle/
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SeZEXyoAAAAJ&hl=en
https://twitter.com/DrBenRunkle
