A graduate research opportunity is available to study how a legacy industrial urbanization has influenced soil capacity to provide ecosystem services, with a focus on those needed to sustain urban agriculture. The selected PhD student will conduct field and laboratory research to measure biological, chemical, and physical facets of soil quality. The project will compare soils from urban vacant lots, urban farms, parks, and rural organic farms. The student could select to evaluate soils from these habitats for microbial community structure, invertebrates, metabolites, mineral and heavy metal levels, as well as predation activity and promotion of plant health and resistance. Interested applicants should contact project PI's for more information about the project and The Ohio State University graduate student application process.
Project PI’s: P. Larry Phelan (phela...@osu.edu) and Mary M. Gardiner (gardiner...@osu.edu). Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University (http://entomology.osu.edu/) The Ohio State University is committed to establishing a culturally and intellectually diverse environment, encouraging all members of our learning community to reach their full potential. We are responsive to dual-career families and strongly promote work-life balance to support our community members through a suite of institutionalized policies. We are an NSF Advance Institution and a member of the Ohio/Western Pennsylvania/West Virginia Higher Education Recruitment Consortium. The Ohio State University is an equal opportunity employer.
