University of Georgia is a public institution that was founded in 1785. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 30,166 (fall 2021), its setting is city, and the campus size is 767 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. University of Georgia’s ranking in the 2022-2023 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #49.
Welcome to the Strauss lab in the Odum School of Ecology at UGA. We study the ways that environmental gradients and species interactions – like competition and predation – shape the dynamics of infectious disease. Reciprocally, we also strive to understand the impacts of parasites and pathogens on community dynamics and ecosystem processes. Research in the Strauss lab is conceptually motivated, and we often approach our questions through an iterative combination of field studies, experiments at both individual and mesocosm scales, and mathematical theory.
We work in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, depending on our interests and the study system that best suits the question at hand. In lakes and ponds, we study communities of zooplankton and their parasites, competitors, predators, and resources. In grassland ecosystems, we study communities of plants and their pathogens, mutualists, and consumers.
The Strauss lab in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia is recruiting one or two graduate students (PhD or MS). Students must be conceptually motivated to tackle questions in community/disease ecology.
Qualifications: Students must be conceptually motivated to tackle questions in community/disease ecology.
Opportunities include participation in ongoing field surveys in local ponds and reservoirs, developing general theory for the community ecology of infectious disease, and using mesocosm experiments to study effects of global change on disease dynamics at community and ecosystem scales. A brief overview of existing lab projects can be found here: https://strausslab.ecology.uga.edu/. Please reach out to Alex Strauss (ats50851@uga.edu) to express your interest or ask any questions.
Salary: ~26-32K
Start Date: 08/01/2023
Last Date to Apply: 12/01/2022