The Integrated Forest Decisions Lab seeks a postdoctoral fellow for a NASA funded project mapping change in global forest integrity over time, and linking this change to biodiversity trends.
The project team involves investigators from University of Northern British Columbia (Oscar Venter), NASA (Cindy Schmidt), the United Nations Development Program (Jamison Ervin), Wildlife Conservation Society (James Watson), Montana State University (Andrew Hansen), University of Maryland (Matthew Hansen) and Arizona State University (Scott Goetz and Patrick Jantz). The results of this project will inform the National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans in 6 partner countries (Columbia, Indonesia, Brazil, DRC, Vietnam, Ecuador). The postdoc will join the IFD lab for two years, contributing to the project by updating the global human footprint map (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/human-footprint-map- ecological-impact/) with the latest datasets, as well as investigate empirical links between biodiversity trends and measures of the Human Footprint and forest integrity. Opportunities will be available for independent projects on related topics, as well as supervising graduate students with overlapping interests. Ideal candidates will have a passion for biodiversity conservation and a desire to contribute to real world conservation outcomes, as well as enjoy working as part of a team in a collaborative setting. In addition to a background in the ecological sciences, the successful candidate will have some combination of skills in: programming, statistics and R, working with big data, high level GIS. Position details: Salary is $55K CND/year, term is 2 years, based in Prince George BC, Canada. To Apply, email a cover letter, CV, and contact details for three references in a single pdf file to Dr. Oscar Venter at oscar dot venter at unbc dot ca. For questions, contact Dr Venter. Review of applications will begin 30 September 2017, and will continue until the position is filled.
