Link to Job on Job Website: https://psu.jobs/job/84238
Job Title: Pollinator Ecology Postdoctoral Scholar, Research Associate
Department: Entomology
Announce Start Date: 11/16/2018
Please submit applications by Dec 20, 2018 for full consideration
Penn State’s Department of Entomology and Center for Pollinator Research
seeks a Postdoctoral Scholar, Research Associate to contribute to a
USDA-NIFA-AFRI and Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research funded
project to model the effect of land use pattern, environmental
conditions, and management practices on honey bee and wild bee health.
The selected Associate will work with collaborators who are developing
longitudinal data sets of honey bee colony weight (obtained from
automated scales), parasite levels, overwintering survival, as well as
wild bee abundance and diversity, and will have the opportunity to
develop new data sets through field studies and/or citizen science
partnerships. The Associate will also work closely with collaborators at
University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and with a
software company designing a decision support tool. Responsibilities
include quantifying landscape-level variation in land management
practices and environmental conditions and evaluating how these impact
managed and wild bee health metrics, in the context of different bee
management practices. We envision that the Postdoc will develop
process-based or statistical modeling approaches that integrate
landscape and bee management practice that can inform a decision support
tool that the research team is developing for beekeepers and wild bee
conservationists. Applicants are required to have a Ph.D. or equivalent
doctorate in an appropriate field and be able to provide evidence that
all requirements have been met for completion of the Ph.D. prior to the
effective date of hire. The candidate should have excellent written and
oral communication skills, the ability to collaborate with and
coordinate the efforts of a large team of researchers from different
institutions, and a track record of publishing his/her work in
scientific journals and presenting to broad audiences. The candidate
should also have strong quantitative and computational skills, knowledge
of spatial datasets and competence in R, Matlab, python or similar
statistical and modeling languages. Experience with multivariate
modeling, machine learning, and time series modeling is also desirable.
It is preferred, but not essential that the candidate have experience
with managed and/or wild bee ecology and preference will be given to
candidates with a Ph.D. in Entomology, Ecology, or related field.
Candidates should submit their applications by December 20, 2018 for
full consideration. Applications, including cover letter, CV, and
contact information for three references, should be submitted. Review of
applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position
is filled. The position will begin in February 2019. This is a fixed
term appointment, funded for one one-year from date of hire, with
excellent possibility of refunding. For more information, please contact
Christina Grozinger, Distinguished Professor of Entomology and Director
of the Center for Pollinator Research, Penn State University,
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
