*Position Announcement: * *Graduate Position in Insect Community & Prairie Ecology *
An opportunity exists at the University of Dayton (UD) for graduate-level training related to questions at the interface of community and ecosystem ecology utilizing insect communities. The student will be based at UD (although, there may be a substantial field component in grasslands in Texas) and will work in the laboratory of Dr. Chelse Prather. I am seeking a motivated student who is eager to perform the arduous tasks associated with ecological field research and chemical analyses in the lab, the careful work of experimentation, and who has an eagerness to learn and implement complex statistical analyses. Potential students must be excited to work with insects and would preferably have fieldwork experience. Students must be able to work well in potentially inclement conditions (e.g., hot summers with many biting insects), and work well with others in the field. Other desirable qualities include: familiarity with sampling grassland vegetation and insects, insect identification, rearing insects, laboratory feeding trials with insects, and laboratory chemical analyses. I would be open to applications from potential Masters or PhD level students. I am currently working on two major projects in my lab: 1) an NSF-funded large-scale manipulation to determine the role of micronutrients in structuring herbivore communities in grasslands <http://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1457114>, and 2) how insect communities colonize prairie constructions compared to native remnants in the area local to UD. These projects could both provide an excellent framework for an intellectually curious student to develop independent, interesting complementary projects. The student will be initially supported by a teaching assistantship through the Department of Biology at UD. The assistantship is associated with a stipend of ~$20,000/year; however, a portion of this comes in the form of a University summer fellowship which is awarded through a competitive process. The assistantship also comes with 100% tuition remission. Support is guaranteed for the life of the project pending satisfactory performance. *If interested, contact Dr. Prather ([email protected] <[email protected]>) with a letter of interest and your CV, and Dr. Prather will begin reviewing candidates immediately. Excellent candidates will be encouraged to apply to UD’s biology graduate program.* UD is the largest private University in the state of Ohio, and is consistently award winning for both academic programs and scholarship http://www.udayton.edu/awards_and_rankings.php. Enrollment is ~11,000 with approximately 3,000 graduate students. Interested individuals are encouraged to view the following web sites: Dr. Prather’s Lab Pages: https://chelseprather.wordpress.com UD Department of Biology: http://biology.udayton.edu University of Dayton: http://www.udayton.edu University of Houston’s Coastal Center (where some of the field work is located): http://www.eih.uh.edu Dr. Chelse Prather Assistant Professor, University of Dayton Office: SC235B, Phone: (937) 229-2716 Lab: SC133, Phone: (937) 229-2586
