Apologies for any cross-postings. The School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona has an opening for a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a new grant funded by the National Science Foundation. This individual will conduct field and controlled environment studies on the effects of wind-borne sediments on dryland vegetation. Ecophysiological quantification of plant species/functional group responses to ‘sandblasting’ will be integrated with sediment flux-vegetation models to quantitatively assess the role of aeolian processes in driving state transformations and desertification in the context of changes in land use and climate.
This individual will conduct gas-exchange measurements on plants experiencing windborne sediment flux and will aid in setting up and conducting experiments to test hypothesis about the interaction between wind and vegetation. Scaling this information to community/landscape-levels will be achieved using existing, but contrasting, dynamic simulation models. The successful candidate will be based in Tucson at the University of Arizona, but will be expected to spend extended periods of time conducting field work at the Chihuahuan Desert Jornada LTER site near Las Cruces, NM (about 4 h drive from Tucson). The post-doctoral associate is expected to actively engage with collaborators at UCLA and the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Las Cruces, to generate peer-reviewed publications in top-tier scientific journals and to serve as Co-PI on future proposals. We seek an individual with demonstrated expertise in plant ecophysiology (gas exchange, water relations, and physiology-morphology linkages in the context of plant growth and development) or familiarity with measurement of aeolian sediment transport processes in arid lands and experience with dynamic simulation modeling, statistics and database management including skills in R, Matlab, SAS or equivalent. More details and application submission information can be found at: https://uacareers.com/postings/18138 Greg Okin Professor, Vice-Chair and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Geography Professor, Institute of Environment and Sustainability University of California, Los Angeles Phone: 310-825-1071 Email: o...@geog.ucla.edu<mailto:o...@geog.ucla.edu>
