Education Associate

The Clifton Institute seeks an Education Associate to provide environmental education programs to children and adults, to communicate with the public about our education programs, and to assist with our ecological restoration and research programs.

The Clifton Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located two miles north of Warrenton, in the northern Piedmont of Virginia. Our 900-acre field station, which includes forests, grasslands, shrub fields, and wetlands, is permanently protected under a conservation easement. Our education programs include field trips for local school groups, summer day camps, and monthly natural history programs for children, as well as regular workshops for adults that cover topics like dragonfly biology, breeding bird songs, and nature photography. Please visit www.cliftoninstitute.org/events to learn about our past and upcoming events. The Clifton Institute is a small but dynamic organization and the successful applicant will play an important role in the growth of the organization.

Duties for this position include:

· Contributing to our curriculum of half-day programs to be provided to groups visiting from local schools and other organizations. These programs focus on ecology, natural history, and conservation biology, but draw on topics in geology, hydrology, math, history, and English.

· Providing half-day programs to groups visiting from local schools and other organizations. This includes coordinating with teachers to arrange the date and time of the visit and to decide what program from our curriculum they would like to do.

· Teaching children natural history, ecology, and conservation biology during our monthly YHikes! (Youth Hikes) Saturday morning program.

· Managing two weeks of day camp where we explore natural history with children ages 8-13. This includes planning activities and hiring camp counselors.

· Assisting our team in providing workshops for adults on natural history, taxonomy, and nature appreciation. This includes communicating with event leaders and participants and keeping the website calendar up-to-date.

· Supervising high school and college interns and volunteers.

· Collaborating with other staff to manage our citizen science projects, including the Christmas Bird Count, North American Butterfly Association count, and Deer Management Assistance Program.

· Assisting with fundraising, including the preparation of grant applications, event planning, and meeting with donors.

· Assisting in the preparation of communications materials such as our quarterly print newsletter, bimonthly email updates, and annual reports.

· Managing our social media pages, including designing engaging Facebook posts.

· The successful candidate will have the opportunity to plan and implement projects in the areas of environmental education, ecological restoration, and biological research that interest you.

· Other duties as assigned.

The successful candidate will have the following qualifications:

· A personal passion for natural history, conservation, and education.

· A working knowledge of the natural history of forests and grasslands of eastern North America.

· Substantial teaching experience and / or other relevant experience working with children.

· A Bachelor’s degree in biology, ecology, education, or related field. A graduate degree in environmental sciences or education a plus.

· Excellent writing skills essential.

· Ecological research or grassland restoration experience a plus.

· Social media skills required.

· Digital design skills a plus.

· Must be willing to work periodically on Saturdays. Our program team often works Tuesday through Saturday.

· Must be authorized to work in the US and able to work at our office in Warrenton, VA.

Salary and Benefits

· Salary will be commensurate with experience. Salary will be in the range of $30,000-$34,000 per year.

· Full time employees receive 15 paid days off during their first year of employment. In addition, we observe ten public holidays.

· The employee will enjoy a flexible work schedule.

· We have competitive health, dental, and retirement benefits as well as life insurance.

· In addition, employees of the Clifton Institute spend a significant amount of time outside on our beautiful 900-acre property.

How to Apply:
Please send applications to bharris@cliftoninstitute.org. Please include a resume and a cover letter describing your interest in working at the Clifton Institute.Please also provide the names and email addresses of at least three references. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

In the administration of its employment policies and practices, The Clifton Institute does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, personal appearance, family responsibilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, veteran status, matriculation, political affiliation or genetic information.

PhD bumble bee host-microbe evolutionary ecology

The Sadd lab in the School of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University is seeking an
exceptional and motivated graduate student (PhD preferred, but MS applications considered)
to study evolutionary and ecological interactions between bumble bees and their beneficial gut
microbes. Successful candidates will develop research projects that complement the aims of a
NIH funded project buidling on ongoing studies investigating bee-microbe interactions, how
host immunity influences these, and fitness relevant outcomes including pathogen infection.
The lab integrates laboratory experiments and field collections with whole-organism,
immunological, microbiological, and functional genomic approaches. More information on the
Sadd Infectious Disease Ecology lab can be found here:
https://faculty.sharepoint.illinoisstate.edu/bmsadd

Competitive applicants will have prior research experience, quantitative skills, the ability to
work independently and as part of a team, and strong oral and written communication abilities.
Applicants with previous experience with the evolutionary ecology of host-microbe
interactions, statistics and data visualization (e.g. R, Python), and analysis of RNAseq or
metagenomic datasets will be preferred.

The position will be funded through a combination of research assistantships on Sadd lab grants
and teaching assistantships provided through the graduate program of the School of Biological
Sciences at Illinois State University. Additionally, applicants are strongly encouraged to apply for
their own fellowships, with the NSF pre-doctoral fellowship (www.nsfgrfp.org) being one of the
most appropriate.

A start date of January 2019 is preferred, although candidates for Fall 2019 may be considered.
For initial unofficial consideration, please email pdfs of i) a cover letter stating your research
interest and qualifications, including GRE scores, and ii) your CV including names and contact
details of two references to Dr. Ben Sadd (bmsadd@ilstu.edu) by September 16th. This will
allow time to discuss your research interests and fit with the group before the target date of
October 1st for applications to be in to the University. Please see
https://biology.illinoisstate.edu/graduate/ and tabs therein for general information on our
graduate program in the School of Biological Sciences. Information about the requirements for
official applications to the graduate program can be found here:
https://biology.illinoisstate.edu/graduate/graduatePrograms/applicationProcedure/
Please contact me with any enquires for additional information.

Dr Ben Sadd
Assistant Professor of Infectious Disease Ecology
School of Biological Sciences
Illinois State University
Normal, IL 61790-4120

The Van Cleve Research Group (http://secure-web.cisco.com/1g2dXqGY54T0dYUVICtHbaiJop1ksuBRH5clPDRniLAwo1lETLBFDvEbpxpdQ7kCmgW8xZasQQ0Qx1V6sovI8cTq9NwkHaB3iCmAQP_jVvCuUyjVKbAkIlT-qWHJz0pK9YpyC9wlkCkjsGT9nxA2QXknSzjuvsKGf6lvwP0eyi16P1B-3A9UHRyyI9p0qyB-G6oHjPlKQWiKj_aDqi2876yClSCAr23_BtDA3JuETay-YNaMDDvM7tNcV3Qc-Zm0I4w9QkrPGXFAc2BzwESH3NqPoCXRkIovQLXbegTuiQo4X-vrxX9FeoEWK-6xioqFyne_O9rCioHjesjDyvTZJs_HryX_4giGQtqF5_mHQ21PDHDvjPZAIRmdrG80qAARZolDdgDWnrBzfnkRlW_Pta9RauY9EUMoKj9t1qaQz4X8wDDhDojQlSq5gnoujLmRkud8IeNjkxXeFGxDCu48FMQ/http%3A%2F%2Fvancleve.theoretical.bio) in
the Department of Biology at the University of Kentucky is currently
recruiting Ph.D. students to join the lab in Fall 2019. The lab in
generally interested in quantitative and mathematical approaches to
evolutionary biology and ecology. Past and current research areas
include social evolution and other topics in evolutionary ecology,
the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and bet-hedging, and epigenetic
processes including genomic imprinting (see here for publications:
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1mcKYufyv3Xwq3-X10sbEYdrEVlWtla7PLQJv_Qj_wuuoDvoWdpyYOvL3cN8ri2NPEy9oTQkVTF65KNzQqAQKa_azKlIEzKO5W_Eo2XF0xsAv9KLqC27Sa5h3LFW64RgWJQ1ognsv8zBPIQ39yPcAbxfagEB2nH5q-VXSIfUAuvgXZclh-W4vNPFjhukoJyYXNk73Kj656_RTcx0aI87THbAjGEdgLvDpiiy7unGlOquoBob_ihLd7F2C1ugC8N7b0wzv9nsxku_aX_Rca8-3AoDMUvSkTWcXkMmLurN7oEau1y042QAKIyxfOda1N7v80DIayF4NCcozur8cOeBxbumGMA-yV87GH2vwVRovY2nGo68r02RRlW2GMcD_bxwOYdum2eb09G6sJTZkJDVAhSIin6_Is_7O5l-fPa51zetVOyzhTjUrmV9QwmmHaFIyOJl3D8E_g61zpELn8QI_CA/http%3A%2F%2Fvancleve.theoretical.bio%2Fpublications).

Additionally, the lab aims to be broadly interdisciplinary across complex
biological systems from the molecular to metapopulation scales and welcomes
applicants interested in quantitative approaches and with diverse
backgrounds including (but not limited to) mathematics, physics, computer
science, and economics.

The exact research project topics for potential students are flexible,
though interested individuals should contact Jeremy Van Cleve (
jvancleve@uky.edu) with a CV and short statement of interests before
applying.

Applicants should apply to the Department of Biology Graduate program (
http://bio.as.uky.edu/grad-program), and admission guidelines can be found
at: http://bio.as.uky.edu/admissions-0. *Stipend, tuition, and medical
insurance, are covered as part of a teaching assistantship* and research
assistantships and fellowships are competitively available.

Questions about the Biology Graduate program can be sent to Van Cleve (<
jvancleve@uky.edu>) or the Director of Graduate studies, David F. Westneat
(<biodfw@uky.edu>).

Please note that applications should be received by ***January 1st 2019***
for full consideration.

 

PhD Student in Freshwater Fish Ecology and Conservation

The Alofs Lab of Applied Aquatic Ecology at the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) at the University of Michigan is recruiting an exceptional PhD student with the motivation to improve our understanding of the effects of environmental change on freshwater fishes and how to manage and conserve aquatic ecosystems. We use a variety of approaches including analyzing monitoring data across regional scales, sampling along disturbance gradients, collecting trait data from natural history collections, and testing mechanisms in field and lab experiments. More details on the lab
here: https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fumich.edu%2Falofs&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7Caafbaed1640a40cbe21b08d6124d499c%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636716520496300874&amp;sdata=wJaLlGoGTaiY6LfiLw7VcLWKxJ8PaNyOEsy1VAcg%2BNA%3D&amp;reserved=0

This is a five year fully funded doctoral program in Resource Ecology Management to start in Fall 2019. Funding includes stipend, tuition/mandatory fees waiver, and benefits), plus benefits. More details about the program and current students can be found here:
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fseas.umich.edu%2Facademics%2Fphd&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7Caafbaed1640a40cbe21b08d6124d499c%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636716520496300874&amp;sdata=ZZDt0RUUy3rOOzEbKqu%2BUEHxf7uPHqPIp5dOKYhvBSk%3D&amp;reserved=0

Qualifications:
Students should have a strong interest and background in ecology, evolution, conservation, limnology, fisheries, natural resource management, science communication and/or statistics and modelling.
Students who have completed an MSc and/or have authored a research publication are especially encouraged.  A Bachelor’s degree is required.

About SEAS, the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor:
The School for Environment and Sustainability is a collaborative and interdisciplinary school. Our mission includes contributing to the protection of environmental resources and the achievement of a sustainable society. We accomplish this by generating and sharing knowledge, contributing to policy and engaging managers and stakeholders. SEAS and U-M have a number of properties that are great places to do field research.
These include: University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) and E.S.
George Reserve. We have numerous local opportunities for collaboration and engagement through the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research
(CIGLR) and the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR) and with colleagues at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL) and USGS Great Lakes Science Center. We also utilize the extensive freshwater fish collections at the U-M Museum of Zoology. The University of Michigan is a top-ranked public university with excellence in research and teaching. Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, is a town known for arts, culture, parks and restaurants.

How to Apply:
Applications are welcome and encouraged from all qualified individuals regardless of background and identity. Details of applications to U-M SEAS graduate program can be found here: https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fseas.umich.edu%2Fadmissions%2Fapply&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7Caafbaed1640a40cbe21b08d6124d499c%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636716520496300874&amp;sdata=2DRFyW5kWKnzYTVBgD4Byp3Y2YYzuznou5jCkWqVPwU%3D&amp;reserved=0.
The final deadline for PhD applications is December 14, 2018. Students must be accepted into the graduate program to join the lab.
If you are interested in pursuing a PhD in the Alofs Lab, before submitting the above online application, please send a cover letter (including background and specific research interests), CV, unofficial transcripts to kmalofs@umich.edu. Please include “PhD Position” in the subject line of your email. Review of this material will be ongoing.

The Walsh lab at the University of Texas at Arlington is recruiting PhD students for the Fall of 2019.  Research in the Walsh addresses questions at the interface of ecology and evolution in aquatic environments.  This position will have the opportunity to contribute to a NSF CAREER grant that is testing the role of phenotypic plasticity in adaptation. This project is resurrecting populations of waterfleas
(Daphnia) from lakes in Wisconsin that have recently adapted to a novel invasive predator. Activities associated with this position include field and laboratory experiments using aquatic organisms. Students with interests in the evolutionary ecology are encouraged to apply.

If interested, please send a brief statement of interests, CV, and GRE scores to Matt Walsh (matthew.walsh@uta.edu). Review of applicants will begin immediately. For more information about the lab, seehttps://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwalshlab.weebly.com%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7C1aa5099b4b1645d4002e08d61192fcc5%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636715720350336137&amp;sdata=Edxgs84i9wGs68%2FxpjVKSwfIS4mncYzQvFzd6tqSv5s%3D&amp;reserved=0. For information regarding the graduate program at UTA, please see https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uta.edu%2Fbiology&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7C1aa5099b4b1645d4002e08d61192fcc5%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636715720350336137&amp;sdata=mMhzXpY0PGcNDQBsCqvIS9qQNM8N2VeEkSZSHahAX2E%3D&amp;reserved=0.  UTA offers very competitive stipends that include a tuition waiver and health insurance coverage.

The Department and University have numerous resources including state- of-the-art labs, an Animal Care Facility, a Genomics Core Facility, a Center for Human Genomics, and the newly established Shimadzu Institute for Research Technologies – a major partnership between UT Arlington and Shimadzu Scientific Instruments that offers extensive resources for imaging, proteomics and analytical chemistry. The Department also benefits from access to core UT-system genomics and computational resources at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) – one of the leading advanced computing centers in the U.S.

Arlington is a city of approximately 365,000 and is conveniently located in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Within a 25-mile radius of the center of Arlington is a workforce of over two million people. The city has 82 public parks, including River Legacy Parks, a 1,300-acre oasis on the Trinity River in the heart of north Arlington.
Arlington is the home of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, the Texas Rangers Ballpark, and Six Flags Over Texas. Cost of living is relatively low for a major metropolitan area. The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is the fourth largest airport in the US. More information on the city of Arlington can be found athttps://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=www.experiencearlington.org&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmiranda.l.davis%40uconn.edu%7C1aa5099b4b1645d4002e08d61192fcc5%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636715720350336137&amp;sdata=wzYZkDzYq2PwyyPLvbJ0zY%2BMGRc%2FNSHHYmzXWcLA5ng%3D&amp;reserved=0.

We seek a graduate student for a newly NSF-funded project examining the life history decisions made by male smallmouth bass. The student will begin in Spring 2019 (ideally), will be based at Bowling Green State University (working with Daniel Wiegmann), and will collaborate with faculty at Rice University (Scott Egan and Kelly
Weinersmith) and Colorado State (Lisa Angeloni). We offer full funding for a Master’s student, or partial funding for a PhD student (whose funding would subsequently be covered by teaching assistantships).

This project would be a good fit for a student interested in a career in natural resource management, evolutionary biology, and/or advanced quantitative methods.

Please send an email containing your CV to Drs. Daniel Wiegmann at ddwiegm@bgsu.edu and Kelly Weinersmith at Weinersmith@Rice.edu if you’re interested. Thanks!

Here is an abstract for the project:

The realization that many, perhaps most, alternative reproductive tactics, or ARTs, depend on individual condition sparked a general interest in the proximate control of tactic expression and the ultimate control of tactic frequencies within populations.
How ARTs coexist within a population is an evolutionary puzzle that is only partially resolved.  ARTs are evolutionary solutions to reproductive competition, products of an investment strategy that accounts for individual condition and fit into a broader category of investment strategies, which includes life history decisions.  ARTs reflect allocation responses to conditions under which individuals have developed.  Project researchers will detail ARTs in a population of smallmouth bass (Micropterous
dolomieu) from data collected in a ten-year, multigenerational study that includes detailed information on individual reproductive behavior.  The system has special intrigue because a non-genetic parental effect is hypothesized to cause tactic alternation within lineages, across generations, which may facilitate or impede adaptive evolutionary processes.  To test the genetic basis of this tactic polymorphism, RADSeq from preserved tissue samples will be used to generate thousands of SNPs across the genome and paternity analysis will be applied to trace tactic choices by males in 240-381 lineages, across 1-5 generations to detail parent and offspring tactic choices.  Developmental conditions and growth histories will be determined from field data and scale samples to identify factors that control the expression of tactics.  Undergraduates from underrepresented groups in STEM and graduate students will be trained in genetics, genomics, bio-informatics and fisheries techniques.  Results will be disseminated through press releases, podcasts, blog posts and an animated video made publicly available and distributed to resource managers and others to display where fishing licenses are sold.

Description: Two full-time Graduate Research Assistantships (Ph.D.) are
available beginning Summer/Fall 2019 in the laboratory of Dr. Brock Harpur (
beemolevo.com) in the Department of Entomology at Purdue University.

North American honeybee populations are non-native. They originate from
European settlers who brought colonies from at least two highly-diverged
source populations. How does admixture of highly diverged populations
influence gene expression, gene regulation, phenotypic expression, and
ultimately the evolution of traits? The Harpur lab is seeking two Ph.D.
students to combine genomics, transcriptomics, computational biology, and
biochemistry to tackle this question focusing on industry-relevant traits.
Application of molecular techniques and outreach to beekeepers and the
community will be an integral part of the students’ training.

Contact: Interested candidates should contact Dr. Harpur (b.harpur@gmail.com)
by November 17th, 2018. Please contact him with any questions. To be
considered for this position send a C.V., contact information for 3
references and a 1-page cover letter describing research interests and
background (use email subject line: “Grad Fellowship: Harpur Lab”). You can
also meet Dr. Harpur in person at the 2018 ESA, ESC, and ESBC Joint Annual
Meeting (Entomology 2018) in Vancouver.

About Purdue University: The Department of Entomology at Purdue is an
integral part of the College of Agriculture, one of the world’s leading
colleges of agricultural, food, life, and natural resource sciences, ranked
eighth globally in the 2016 QS World University Rankings. The College is
deeply committed to the three land-grant missions (teaching, research, and
extension), to international activities and perspectives that span all
missions. The College has 11 academic departments and includes 325 faculty,
2782 undergraduate students, and 690 graduate students. The College’s
strategic plan can be accessed at
https://ag.purdue.edu/plan/Pages/default.aspx

For more information on the Entomology Graduate Program, Purdue University
and West Lafayette, Indiana see:
http://www.entm.purdue.edu/prospective-grads/,  http://www.purdue.edu/ and
http://secure-web.cisco.com/17CMYjFDxbhvUGGGvfVhZ6DZj2HDPxF93lVxfJX4U4Evilaz3-6gfAaZjEp6sFe-ub_jKCkvxeYrh3EqKLRF13uEVgcgylvyQ41SwglBNRsNGdn0Z1nWHUAU7uRUk0urLjjr3a3Jtwg6Kx-76TjcUY9wK0fRvyTJ650I_BS0OzYwtxIxCy8zWMI9xyQHhwejIOzyHOj2eU7ZLLpga8ZHp54PxVfGFNIS9X0N2IInE-weR2HMfVAyNSpFG1Qmo9cyiaU4fJ1G8BoJbfj03ZRAw3nmebbgoOzWpiRQeOVyOVSaGIHlCOVyMQ5cv2P94tIzN1xpmtNsSoRSXrWTXhYr1fNMTCswjoltlABp0g_uPpor-4vWWYgILgSPF10PIMxRvHQbqrSA5edObn9-MpEVeOZXNN4ccOKPYivg6GAu1Gf5BaT8aqTMJI6iG855MlzD7_m5smxvLULl9iIJrwmoBuA/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofpurdue.com%2F

The Department and College of Agriculture are committed to advancing
diversity in all areas of faculty effort, including scholarship,
instruction, and engagement. Purdue is an ADVANCE institution –
www.purdue.edu/advance-purdue .  Purdue University is an EOE/AA employer.
All individuals, including minorities, women, individuals with
disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply.

b.harpur@gmail.com