Join Our Team
Two Post-doctoral Positions: Quantitative Ecologist, Oceanographer, Coastal Hydrologist or Resource Economist (Application review begins June 15, 2010)
Two Post-doctoral Positions: Quantitative Ecologist, Oceanographer, Coastal Hydrologist or Resource Economist (Application review begins June 15, 2010)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service seeks 2 postdoctoral researchers in one or more of the following fields: quantitative ecology, spatial ecology, oceanography, coastal hydrology, or resource economics. In collaboration with the Natural Capital Project, we are developing tools to model and map the distribution of biodiversity and the flow of multiple ecosystem services across land- and seascapes, with a focus on Chesapeake Bay, U.S. east coast, Galveston Bay, Texas, and Puget Sound, Washington.
We seek two imaginative individuals for 2-year post-docs to support further development and application of the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) models. The successful applicants will help design, adapt, document and implement a series of marine and terrestrial biophysical and socio-economic models of ecosystem services (e.g., food from fisheries and aquaculture, nursery habitat, coastal protection, recreation, agricultural crop production, irrigation water). The post-docs will analyze data to parameterize and validate these models for 1-2 of the three focal systems – Chesapeake Bay, Galveston Bay or Puget Sound. The post-docs and other project collaborators will apply these models in all three systems. Together, these models will provide a spatially explicit tool that tracks the production and valuation of ecosystem services. The models will be used to assess the importance of including the effects of watershed-based activities in managing marine coastal resources. The models are also intended to aid in the support of coastal and marine management decisions, so applicants must be passionate about creating simple, elegant, scientifically robust models for decision-making purposes.
The positions will be located in either Seattle, WA at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center or in Oxford, MD at NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office and will require extensive interaction with interdisciplinary teams and travel to facilitate collaboration among team members. The post-docs would be part of a team that includes Mary Ruckelshaus, Gretchen Daily, Phil Levin, Mark Plummer, and Howard Townsend.
Preferred Qualifications:
For all candidates:
-
- Experience in building and calibrating models, confronting them with limited data and expressing uncertainty
- Expertise working with collaborators from diverse backgrounds and capacity and interest to work with interdisciplinary teams
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Strong programming skills
For natural science candidates:
-
- A Ph.D. in quantitative or spatial ecology, oceanography, coastal hydrology or a closely related field
- Experience conducting quantitative analyses and modeling with oceanographic, hydrological, water quality or ecological data at the land-sea interface
- Experience integrating oceanographic, hydrological, ecological or ecosystem models with social or economic models
For social science candidates:
-
- A Ph.D. in environmental or agricultural and natural resource economics or a closely related field
- Experience developing spatially-explicit economic models in the context of natural resource and or land-use management
- Experience conducting empirical analyses related to market and non-market valuation
- Experience integrating economic models with other biological, physical or social models
How to Apply:
For full consideration, please submit a cover letter, CV, and the names of three references to with “POSTDOCTORAL QUANTITATIVE ECOLOGIST/OCEANOGRAPHER/ COASTAL HYDROLOGIST/RESOURCE ECONOMIST” listed in the subject line. We will begin reviewing applications June 15, 2010 and the position will remain open until filled.