Undergraduate Independent Study Opportunity

Topic: Released and Deceased

When: Starting in the summer or fall 2018

We are looking for a junior or senior undergraduate student to work in the Schultz Laboratory with a graduate student on a project which estimates the biomass of dead discarded fish in marine recreational fisheries in coastal USA. The undergraduate student will work with the graduate student to identify candidate species for the study, download relevant datasets, perform literature searches to find supporting material and then write basic code in R for data manipulation and analysis. The student is required to be either be an EEB major or an NRE major. The preferred candidate should have taken either EEB 2244 and/or NRE 4335, have experience reading primary literature, knowledge of basic statistics and familiarity with R.

Candidates from underrepresented groups in higher education are especially encouraged to apply. Please contact Jacob Kasper via email at jacob.kasper@uconn.edu with cover letter and resume

Subject: Research Experience for Undergraduates REU – Opportunity

http://sala.lab.asu.edu/resources/opportunities/

The Sala Lab at Arizona State University (http://sala.lab.asu.edu) is looking for motivated undergraduate students to participate in research activities in grassland ecosystem ecology during the summer of 2018.
Successful applicants will work with graduate students, technicians and postdocs to assist with ongoing rainfall manipulation experiments at the Jornada LTER (https://jornada.nmsu.edu/lter), vegetation and soil sampling, and other field surveys at several field sites across the US.
Additionally, participants have the opportunity to work with Sala Lab members and the PI to develop a personalized project.

The successful applicant should be a current undergraduate student who is not a graduating senior. Application deadline is May 1st, 2018.
Please send application materials to Dr. Laureano Gherardi (Lau@asu.edu). More information about this opportunity and application material details are in the solicitation attached to this e-mail or can be viewed in the Opportunities link above.

Cheers,
Lau

The Greives lab is recruiting motivated PhD students interested in participating in research projects aimed at understanding how animals integrate environmental signals, time seasonal or daily transitions, and/or the selective pressures shaping seasonality of temperate breeding birds. Specific projects can vary based on research interests but may include investigations of relationships between variation in endocrine ‘phenotypes’ and daily and seasonal timing (e.g. timing of dawn song or seasonal clutch initiation), or investigations of the costs and benefits of timing decisions (e.g.
timing of reproduction).

The PhD student would join a department with expertise in organismal biology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary ecology, including four established and collaborative avian behavior/physiology labs (T.
Greives, B. Heidinger, W. Reed, P. Klug).  Students will begin August 2018 and will participate in either the Biological Sciences or Environmental and Conservation Sciences graduate program at NDSU.

Preferred qualifications include: experience with mist netting, handling and obtaining blood samples from small birds and/or experience with lab techniques including PCR or ELISAs.

Competitive stipend funding and tuition waivers via teaching and/or research assistantships are available. If you are interested in this position please contact Dr. Tim Greives at timothy[dot]greives[at]ndsu[dot]edu.  Please include in your email your research experiences as well as your research interests and how these match with research in the Greives lab.  Also please include your degree, GPA and two potential references.

An MS research assistantship is available in the Ecophysiology lab of Dr.
Heidi Renninger in the Department of Forestry
(http://www.cfr.msstate.edu/forestry/) at Mississippi State University starting in the August, 2018.  Broadly, our lab seeks to understand how the physical environment affects plant physiological functioning in terms of productivity and water use and how environmental change will alter plant and ecosystem function in the future.  We are currently working with short rotation woody biofuel crops to determine environmental vs. genetic controls on productivity, water use and nutrient uptake.  The assistantship includes a stipend, full tuition waiver and health insurance.  More information about the graduate school at Mississippi State University can be found here: http://www.grad.msstate.edu/.  To learn more about the position, please contact Heidi Renninger (Heidi.Renninger@msstate.edu).  Interested students should submit 1) a letter stating their goals for graduate school 2) academic transcripts and
3) a resume/CV to Dr. Renninger prior to submitting an online application to the MSU graduate school. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until a suitable applicant is found.

Subject: Opening: Research assistant in tidal wetland ecology at GW

I am searching for a full time research assistant to join my lab in summer
2018 to assist in the set-up, maintenance, and break down of wetland plant ecology field and greenhouse experiments and vegetation monitoring campaigns. The research assistant will help in other stages of research:
developing protocols, managing data, and processing plant and soil samples in the laboratory. The research assistant will prepare and run carbon and nitrogen analyses of plant tissue samples in the lab.

Requirements: Fieldwork can be physically taxing. Applicants must be able to hike to field sites, spend hours in hot and buggy conditions, and lift up to
50 lbs. Applicants must have an undergraduate degree in ecology or a related science. Plant research experience is preferred, although training will be provided in plant identification and ecological and analytical methods.
Please describe relevant experience in your cover letter. Funding is available for 1 year with a competitive salary and benefits package. To apply to this opportunity, please submit an application prior to April 30:
http://www.gwu.jobs/postings/50556

The Gedan lab at The George Washington University investigates the response of coastal and marine species and ecosystems to global changes in climate, sea level, nutrient availability, and invasive species. We focus on conservation-priority, shallow, marine ecosystems, especially tidal marsh.
We are interested in marsh migration and the conversion of natural and human-dominated uplands, as well as the novel ecosystems and interactions occurring in transitioning coastal areas. Our team primarily relies upon an experimental approach in the greenhouse and the field. Established field sites are in the estuaries and coastal bays of the Mid-Atlantic. The lab is located in a newly constructed interdisciplinary science building in downtown Washington, DC, across the street from the Foggy Bottom Metro station.

The university is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer that does not unlawfully discriminate in any of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Subject: Graduate Opportunity in Urban Forest Modeling

Dr. Christina Staudhammer in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama (http://cstaudhammer.people.ua.edu/) is now inviting applications for a PhD or MS position starting in spring 2019. The student will work on a project in urban forestry, partially funded by a grant from NSF-Ecosystems.
The benefits of urban forests to city-dwelling people include recreation, pollution, mitigation, energy savings, and water purification. However, fundamental questions still remain about the resistance and resilience of urban ecosystems to anthropogenic change, especially associated with projected alterations in global climate. Hurricane Irma, while destructive, created an opportunity to evaluate the impact of windstorms on urban forests. Utilizing pre- and post-storm field-measured and remotely sensed data, a student is sought to model the relationship between tree, landscape, and socioeconomic characteristics, storm variables, and urban forest damage.  This work will fill gaps in our knowledge about the ecosystem services provided by urban forests. The overarching goal is to enhance our scientific understanding of the role of urban forests at local to regional scales, and how they respond to disturbance.
It is expected that prospective graduate students will develop their own research plans and goals, and therefore should be self-motivated and independent. Students should be interested in combining ecology with statistical modeling. Students should have demonstrated experience in statistics, as well as a background forest ecology, geography, or environmental science. A solid working knowledge of SAS and/or R is required, and those with strong quantitative skills will be given preference.
This position is primarily a Teaching Assistantship, supplemented by grant funding. However students are expected to apply for additional funding.
Interested students will earn a graduate degree from the Department of Biological Sciences. The project will also offer the opportunity to interact with researchers from the USDA forest service, as well as researchers from the University of Florida and University of South Florida.
The University of Alabama is located in Tuscaloosa, a college town of ~100,000, surrounded by extensive and varied forests. These forests, and the greater region, provide a wide range of recreational amenities including rock climbing, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, hiking and mountain biking.
To be eligible, students must meet the graduate admission requirements of the University of Alabama: an undergraduate GPA > 3.0 overall, 3.0 for the last 60 semester hours in a degree program or 3.0 for a completed graduate degree program, and a 300 on the GRE.  If interested, email a short summary of your research interests, an unofficial transcript from undergraduate (and post-graduate, if applicable) work, as well as a CV to Dr. Christina Staudhammer (cstaudhammer@ua.edu).

Subject: PhD Position Available in Entomology at MSU

The Jim Smith and Peter White research group at Michigan State University (https://msu.edu/user/jimsmith andwww.pjtwhite.org) seeks a motivated PhD student interested in pursuing research investigating insect evolutionary genetics, focused on tephritids, or the impact of urbanization and landscape change on insect populations, primarily within Lepidoptera. There is considerable latitude in research focus, which may include aspects of (A) landscape ecology, (B) natural history and phylogeography, (C) Lepidoptera or tephritid phylogenetics, (D) citizen science initiatives, particularly in the K-14 education sphere, and/or (E) invasive species ecology.

This PhD position is fully funded through a graduate teaching assistantship in the school year, and with available bridge-funding in the summer.

The position could start as early as the Fall 2018 semester.

Qualifications:
– Applicants should have a solid background in entomology and/or ecology and/or genetics
– Applicants must have strong writing skills and possess proficiency in English (both written and spoken) and a valid driving license.
– Applicants should have a strong quantitative reasoning skills.
– Experience or strong interest in teaching and science education is desirable.
– Experience working with undergraduates is desirable.
– A MS is desirable, though not necessarily required.

Application Process:
– Interested applicants should follow the instructions found on the MSU Entomology website here:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/ent/students/graduate_studies/application_process

– In addition, interested applicants should send the following materials to the lab PIs, Peter White (pwhite@msu.edu) and Jim Smith (jimsmith@msu.edu)

(i) an updated CV, (ii) a writing sample, and (iii) a personal statement describing the applicant’s area of research interest.