miércoles, 25 de abril de 2012

Postdoctoral position in Food security and Ecosystem services

http://www.bc3research.org/join_us/job_offers.html

The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) offers a post-doctoral level position on ecosystem services modelling. The position is for a modeller with significant computing and quantitative skills. The successful candidate will conduct research culminating in the production of models for the ARIES modelling platform (http://www.ariesonline.org ) that will characterize how food security and other ecosystem services interact and how they are affected by climate change. The research will be conducted in the scope of the ASSETS project (Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface), financed by the ESPA program of NERC (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/espa/ ) in close collaboration with the University of Southampton, Conservation International, CGIAR Colombia and Chancellor’s Council Malawi.

Experience/skills required: The successful candidate will have a PhD in ecology, computer science or related discipline, and a demonstrable interdisciplinary background including experience in ecoinformatics, GIS, modelling and ecological economics. High level computing skills, including software development and design, will be expected, as well as creativity and the flexibility to learn new and cutting-edge topics quickly. Applicants should also have excellent interpersonal and communication skills and be fluent in English. A good knowledge of Spanish will be an asset. The researcher will be supervised directly by ARIES principal investigator Prof. Ferdinando Villa, work with a distributed worldwide team, and will be expected to travel worldwide. Specifically, the researcher will:

-Become a member of the ARIES project team, an initiative connecting NGOs and research institutions worldwide to redefine the science and practice of ecosystem services assessment.
-Produce models linking ecosystem services with food security, to be applied for assessment and forecasting in case studies worldwide.
-Publish high-impact, peer-reviewed research in international scientific journals.
-Contribute to a dynamic research team at BC3 ranging disciplinarily from physical sciences to the socio-economic aspects of climate change.

Location: Basque Centre for Climate Change, Bilbao (Spain).

Tenure: The contract will start as soon as the position is filled. It will be for a period of three years, with a possibility of extending it upon positive performance assessment.

Salary:The position will carry competitive salaries according to the academic and professional profile of the applicant and excellent conditions of work.

Those interested should send their application (CV, one page motivation letter and two reference letters) to hr@bc3research.org noting in the subject of the message “Post-doctoral position on ecosystem services modelling”.

Application closes: 15th May, 2012