Outstanding, motivated candidates are being sought for a post-doctoral position in the Gilchrist lab in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The successful candidate will be supported by a three year NSF grant whose goal is to develop, integrate and test mathematical models of protein translation and sequence evolution using available genomic sequence and expression level datasets. Publications directly related to this work include Gilchrist. M.A. 2007, Molec. Bio. & Evol. (http://www.tinyurl/shahgilchrist11) and Shah, P. and M.A. Gilchrist 2011, PNAS (http://www.tinyurl/gilchrist07a).

The emphasis of the laboratory is focused on using biologically motivated models to analyze complex, heterogeneous datasets to answer biologically motivated questions. The research associated with this position draws upon a wide range of scientific disciplines including: cellular biology, evolutionary theory, statistical physics, protein folding, differential equations, and probability. Consequently, the ideal candidate would have a Ph.D. in either biology, mathematics, physics, computer science, engineering, or statistics with a background and interest in at least one of the other areas.

The researcher will collaborate closely with the PIs (Drs. Michael Gilchrist and Russell Zaretzki) on this project but potentiall have time to collaborate on other research projects with the PIs. In addition, the researcher will have opportunties to interact with other faculty members in the Division of Biology as well as researchers at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (http://www.nimbios.org).

Review of applications begins immediately and will continue until the position is filled. To apply, please submit curriculum vitae including three references, a brief statement of research background and interests, and 1-3 relevant manuscripts to mikeg[at]utk[dot]edu.

The Department of Biology at the University of New Mexico is seeking applications for a post-doc position in ecology/biodiversity. The post doc will be expected to play a major role in a multi-investigator, multi- institutional project supported by a four-year NSF Macrosystems Ecology grant. The research will focus on metabolic processes underlying the major patterns of biodiversity, especially in pervasive temperature dependence and requires a demonstrated working knowledge of theory, mathematical and computer
modeling skills.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in ecology or a related discipline.

Review begins with the first applications and continues until the position is filled. Applicants must submit a cover letter and a curriculum vitae along with at least three phone numbers of references, three letters of recommendation and PDF’s of relevant preprints and publications to be sent directly to ecohire@unm.edu attn: James Brown. Application materials must be received by July 25, 2011, for best consideration.

Questions related to this posting may be directed to Dr. James Brown at ecohire@unm.edu or to Katherine Thannisch at kthannis@unm.edu.

The University of New Mexico is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and Educator. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply.

Interface between ecology, evolution and mathematics

The first is with Hélène Morlon’s group in Paris. Hélène and I were postdocs in Jessica Green’s lab at the same time. She is both very smart and extremely nice, oh, and did I mention, her lab is in PARIS. Here’s the ad. If it’s a good fit then you couldn’t go wrong with this postdoc.

A postdoctoral position is available in my new lab at the Ecole Polytechnique and/or at the Museum of Natural History in Paris to work at the interface between ecology-evolution and mathematics. Candidates with a background in biology and a strong interest in modeling, or with a theoretical background and a strong interest in biology, are encouraged to apply. More information is available here. Potential candidates should feel free to contact me. The deadline for application is May 8th.

The other two postdocs are associated with Tim Keitt’s lab (which I consider to be one of the top quantitative ecology groups out there).

Mechanistic niche modeling and climate change impacts

A postdoctoral position is anticipated as part of a collaborative project to develop and evaluate mechanistic niche models that incorporate geographic variation in physiological traits. The post doc will be based in Michael Angilletta’s laboratory at Arizona State University, but will interact with members of Lauren Buckley’s lab at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Tim Keitt’s lab at the University of Texas in Austin. The post doc will be expected to engage in modeling activities and coordinate lab studies of thermal physiology. Experience with mathematical modeling in C++, MATLAB, Python or R is beneficial and familiarity with environmental data and biophysical ecology is beneficial. More here.

Ecological forecasting or statistical landscape genetics

The Keitt Lab at the University of Texas at Austin seeks a postdoctoral investigator to join an interdisciplinary NSF-funded project linking ecophysiology, genomics and climate change. The position requires excellent modeling skills and the ability to engage in multidisciplinary research. Research areas of interest include either ecological forecasting or statistical landscape genomics. More here.

So, if you’re looking for a job go check out these great opportunities.

The short job ad:

Ethan White’s lab at Utah State University is looking for a postdoc to collaborate on research studying approaches for unifying macroecological patterns (e.g., species abundance distributions and species-area relationships) and predicting variation in these patterns using ecological and environmental variables. The project aims to 1) evaluate the performance of models that link ecological patterns by using broad scale data on at least three major taxonomic groups (birds, plants, and mammals); and 2) combine models with ecological and environmental factors to explain continental scale variation in community structure. Models to be explored include maximum entropy models, neutral models, fractal based models, and statistical models. The postdoc will also be involved in an ecoinformatics initiative developing tools to facilitate the use of existing ecological data. There will be ample opportunity for independent and collaborative research in related areas of macroecology, community ecology, theoretical ecology, and ecoinformatics. The postdoc will benefit from interactions with researchers in Dr. White’s lab, the Weecology Interdisciplinary Research Group, and with Dr. John Harte’s lab at the University of California Berkeley. Applicants from a variety of backgrounds including ecology, mathematics, statistics, physics and computer science are encouraged to apply. The position is available for 1 year with the possibility for renewal depending on performance. The start date is flexible. Applications will be considered starting on March 7th, 2011. Go to the USU job page to see the full advertisement and to apply.

UPDATE: This position has now been filled.

It seems pretty clear to me that the web is the primary source of information acquisition for most academics, at least up through the young associate professors. There are no doubt some senior folk who would still rather have a paper copy of a journal sent to them via snail mail and who rarely open their currently installed copy of Internet Explorer 6, but I would be very surprised if most folks who are evaluating graduate student, postdoctoral and faculty job candidates aren’t dropping the name of the applicant into their favorite search engines and seeing what comes up. They aren’t looking around for dirt like all those scary news stories that were meant to stop college students from posting drunken photos of themselves on social networking sites. They’re just procrastinating looking for more information to get a clearer picture of you as a scientist/academic. I also do a quick web search when I meet someone interesting at a conference, get a paper/grant to review with authors I haven’t heard of before, read an interesting study by someone I don’t know, etc. Many folks who apply to join my lab for graduate school find me through the web.

When folks go looking around for you on the web you want them to find something (not finding anything is the digital equivalent of “being a nobody”), and better yet you want them to find something that puts your best foot forward. But what should this be? Should you Tweet, Buzz, be LinkedIn, start a Blog, have a Wiki*, or maybe just get freaked out by all of this technology and move to the wilderness somewhere and never speak to anyone ever again.

I think the answer here is simple: start with a website. This is the simplest way to present yourself to the outside world and you can (and should) start one as soon as you begin graduate school. The website can be very simple. All you need is a homepage of some kind, a page providing more detailed descriptions of your research interests, a CV, a page listing your publications†, and a page with your contact information. Keep this updated and looking decent and you’ll have as good an online presence as most academics.

While putting together your own website might seem a little intimidating it’s actually very easy these days. The simplest approach is to use one of the really easy hosted solutions out there. These include things like Google Sites, which are specifically designed to let you make websites; or you can easily turn a hosted blogging system into a website (WordPress.com is often used for this). There are lots of other good options out there (let us know about your favorites in the comments). In addition many universities have some sort of system set up for letting you easily make websites, just ask around. Alternatively, you can get a static .html based template and then add your own content to it. Open Source Web Design is the best place I’ve found for templates. You can either open up the actual html files or you can use a WYSIWYG editor to replace the sample text with your own content. SeaMonkey is a good option for a WYSIWYG editor. Just ask your IT folks how to get these files up on the web when you’re done.

So, setting up a website is easy, but should you be doing other things as well and if so what. At the moment I would say that if you’re interested in trying out a new mode of academic communication then you should pick one that sounds like fun to you and give it a try; but this is by no means a necessity as an academic at the moment. If you do try to do some of these other things, then do them in moderation. It’s easy to get caught up in the rapid rewards of finishing a blog post or posting a tweet on Twitter, not to mention keeping up with others blogs and tweets, but this stuff can rapidly eat up your day and for the foreseeable future you won’t be getting a job based on your awesome stream of 140 character or less insights.

Ethan White’s lab at Utah State University is looking for a postdoc to collaborate on research studying approaches for unifying macroecological patterns (e.g., species abundance distributions and species-area relationships) and predicting variation in these patterns using ecological and environmental variables. The project aims to 1) evaluate the performance of models that link ecological patterns by using broad scale data on at least three major taxonomic groups (birds, plants, and mammals); and 2) combine models with ecological and environmental factors to explain continental scale variation in community structure. Models to be explored include maximum entropy models, neutral models, fractal based models, and statistical models. The postdoc will also be involved in an ecoinformatics initiative developing tools to facilitate the use of existing ecological data. There will be ample opportunity for independent and collaborative research in related areas of macroecology, community ecology, theoretical ecology, and ecoinformatics. The postdoc will benefit from interactions with researchers in Dr. White’s lab, the Weecology Interdisciplinary Research Group, and with Dr. John Harte’s lab at the University of California Berkeley. Applicants from a variety of backgrounds including ecology, mathematics, statistics, physics and computer science are encouraged to apply. The position is available for 1 year with the possibility for renewal depending on performance, and could begin as early as September 2010 and no later than May 2011. Applications will begin to be considered starting on September 1, 2010. Go to the USU job page to see the full advertisement and to apply.

If you’re interested in the position and are planning to be at ESA please leave a comment or drop me an email (ethan.white@usu.edu) and we can try to set up a time to talk while we’re in Pittsburgh. Questions about the position and expressions of interest are also welcome.

UPDATE: This position has been filled.

The Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University is offering a post-doctoral fellowship in ecology and/or natural resource management. Applicants must contact a sponsoring scientist from within the department’s faculty (http://www.cnr.usu.edu/wild/htm/faculty-staff) and then jointly develop a one-page research proposal. Applications are due April 1, 2010. Duration of funding is one year, renewable to two years subject to satisfactory performance and continued availability of funds. The salary is $40,000 in addition to the standard benefits package for USU employees. Contact Johan duToit (johan.dutoit@usu.edu) for more details on the application process.

The candidate is expected to initiate new research in the area of Conservation Ecology. He/she has to attract new PhD projects and build up a leading international position in this field. He/she is an excellent teacher who can motivate students of different disciplines and develop new courses on specific topics about this subject in the BSc and the MSc programmes. Teaching duties include the supervision of bachelor, master and PhD students.

The appointment will be on a temporary basis for a maximum of 6 years. On completion of 5 years of employment there will be an assessment of performance based on established criteria including research and teaching qualifications. If the outcome of the assessment is positive, the assistant professor will be promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure. At the end of a further 5-7 year period there will be another assessment aimed at a promotion to full professor.

The candidate should be a scientist capable of leading a research line in the field of Conservation Ecology, with emphasis on an experimental, field-based approach in his/her research. He/She should be able to establish an independent line of research of high quality so that after a term of five years sufficient international exposure and reputation will guarantee the candidate to sustain a sizeable group in the aforementioned research area. He/She will supervise PhD students, postdocs and technicians that are directly appointed under his/hers responsibility. Our institute can offer existing excellent opportunities for experimental research in the nearby WaddenSea (salt marshes, coastal dunes, intertidal mudflats). Also, existing field sites supported by lang-term monitoring datasets are available in inland species-rich grasslands, often grazed by large herbivores. We seek a candidate who is able to integrate classic work in understanding long-term vegetation dynamics with novel work on self organization, biocomplexity, food webs and interaction networks, through combining observational, experimental (emphasis) and theoretical approaches. In this, candidates with a zoological or botanical background, or both, are welcome.

Applications for this position should be received no later that 15 February 2010. For more information about the position, and the detailed application procedure, see: www.rug.nl/biol/cocon.

The Ballantyne Lab at the University of Kansas is looking to recruit up to two graduate students for the fall of 2010. Current research is focused on modeling ecosystem stoichiometry, nutrient dynamics, microbial decomposition of soil carbon, systems-level regulation of metabolism, spatially explicit populations and the trophic structure of communities. Although most of our experiments are performed with phytoplankton and bacteria in the lab, the KU field station, 20 minutes from campus, is a great resource that is home to long-term studies of community assembly. Please direct inquiries to Ford Ballantyne (fb4 [at] ku [dot] edu). For more information about graduate study in the lab and EEB at KU please look at http://www.people.ku.edu/~fb4 and http://www2.ku.edu/%7Eeeb/graduate/ and http://www.kuerg.ku.edu/.

Additional information about the position and Utah State University is available here.

Interested students can find more information about the lab at our website.

If you are still interested after checking out the website you should contact me directly at epwhite@biology.usu.edu. Please send a CV, GPA, GRE scores (if available), and a brief description of your general research interests.

DEADLINE: For full consideration, formal applications should be submitted by January 1st, 2009.