University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a public institution that was founded in 1891. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 15,178 (fall 2021), its setting is urban, and the campus size is 266 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s ranking in the 2022-2023 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 219.
The McLean Lab at University of North Carolina Greensboro is recruiting PhD and Masters-level students to study flea genomics and the evolution and ecology of mammal fleas in Central Asia (Mongolia and Kazakhstan). The work is funded by a collaborative National Science Foundation grant. Students will have the opportunity to work in a highly collaborative context, engage with international collaborators, and apply cutting-edge genomic techniques to wild-caught fleas to better understand flea biodiversity, landscape-level population connectivity, and host associations in grasslands and steppes of Central Asia.
Research in the McLean lab bridges evolution and ecology and is especially geared towards understanding structure and complexity of multi-host, multi-parasite networks and their responses to past and present environmental change. We use an integrative toolkit that emphasizes fieldwork, museum collections, phylogenomics, community analyses, and biodiversity informatics approaches. Prospective applicants will be encouraged to develop research projects that apply one or more of these tools to flea genomic evolution. Successful applicants will begin graduate school in August 2022, with the option to work as a field technician on lab project(s) during summer 2022.
UNCG is a minority-serving institution that embraces diversity and inclusivity, and applicants from populations traditionally underrepresented in STEM are encouraged to reach out for more information about this position. Students accepted into the lab will be provided a tuition waiver and a competitive stipend. Additional competitive fellowships may be available. The deadline for application to the Environmental Health Science PhD program is 15 January 2023.
Qualifications:
Prior experience with arthropod genetics/genomics preferred, but not required. To inquire about positions, please email Bryan McLean (b_mclean@uncg.edu) no later than November 15th and include: 1) a description of your general interests in ecology and evolution, and 2) an updated CV including a summary of academic and research experiences.
Last Date to Apply: 01/15/2023
For more information about the UNCG Graduate Program in Biology, please visit:
https://biology.uncg.edu/graduate/mission/.
For more information about the HIGH quality of life and LOW cost of living in Greensboro, please visit:
https://www.greensboro-nc.gov/i-want-to
https://realestate.usnews.com/places/north-carolina/greensboro