We have three Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) jobs in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge:
1 – Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term):
We are seeking a highly motivated post-doctoral Research Associate to design and perform experiments to decipher the physiological differences between maize and wild barley lines with contrasting photosynthetic properties as discovered by large-scale phenotypic screens as part of the CAPITALISE project. The successful candidate will also present results at consortium meetings and write publications in peer reviewed journals as well as curate and share data and generally liaise with project partners across work packages.
Key Skills: The successful candidate must have a PhD in Plant Sciences and evidence of deep understanding of C3 and C4 photosynthesis in higher plants and strong hands-on experience with a broad variety of measurement techniques to probe photosynthetic functioning (including chlorophyll fluorescence, gas exchange, absorbance changes). In addition, applicants must be very proficient with R for data processing and statistical analysis.
Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 30 September 2024 in the first instance. Click the ‘Apply’ button below to register an account with our recruitment system (if you have not already) and apply online.
Please notice that if you have not received any news from us 1 month after the closing date you should consider that on this occasion your application has not been successful. Please quote reference PD37005 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society. The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.
Further information
Further Particulars & Apply online Closing date: 14 June 2023
2 – Research Associate (Fixed Term):
We are seeking an outstanding landscape ecologist with experience of working at the interface between biodiversity science and remote sensing. They will join the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CLR), funded through the Natural Environment Research Council’s Changing the Environment programme. CLR aims to provide the evidence needed to fulfill government ambitions to bring back more nature to British countryside and deliver a greater range of ecosystem services than food production (important though that is).
The programme is focusing on three contrasting landscapes: the East Anglian fenland (primarily used for productive arable agriculture); the Scottish Highlands (traditionally used for deer stalking and forestry plantations) and the Lake District (with a thousand-year history of extensive sheep grazing).
We envisage using several remote sensing products to achieve these objectives, and will give the postdoc the opportunity to decide which datasets to collect / purchase. We plan to fly watercourses and other wetlands in the fens, with a Mavic 3M drone this summer to obtain detailed imagery for habitat classification. We will also plan to purchase high-resolution satellite imagery (e.g. Maxar) to evaluate whether nuanced habitat classification is possible from space using CNN. In the Cairngorms we plan to conduct an airborne lidar and photographic survey, to provide detailed habitat structure data.
The project provides an exciting opportunity to understand human influences on biodiversity in three iconic regions of the UK, and produce evidence that is relevant to policy and practice. Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 33 months in the first instance.
Click the ‘Apply’ button below to register an account with our recruitment system (if you have not already) and apply online. Please notice that if you have not received any news from us 1 month after the closing date you should consider that on this occasion your application has not been successful.
Please quote reference PD35718 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy. The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society. The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.
Further information
Further Particulars & Apply online Closing date: 16 June 2023
3- Research Associate (Fixed Term):
The tropics harbour more species than anywhere else on Earth. This biodiversity supports a number of ecosystem services¿benefits that humankind derives from the natural environment¿that are essential for human well-being and socioeconomic opportunities. Of particular importance is timber and associated wood products. Yet the overexploitation of timber via selective logging in tropical forests and the emerging risk of severe wildfire under climate change threaten the long-term sustainable flow of this vital resource, the survival of harvested species, and the hyperdiversity of unexploited flora and fauna within logged forests.
Our previous work has developed remote-sensing algorithms to detect selective logging in the Amazon. These approaches have since been adopted by Peru’s forest oversight agency (OSINFOR) who are now using them to detect illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon. However, these algorithms were developed using data from the Brazilian Amazon, further to the east. Work closely with OSINFOR, we seek to integrate their forest plot data and logging records into these algorithms to further improve their accuracy.
Other recent work has quantified the impacts of severe wildfires on timber production globally. This has identified major and increasing losses of timber production, particularly in USA, Canada, Russia, Australia, and Brazil. We now seek to project how increasingly severe climate change will threaten timber production through wildfires and mitigation options to reduce these risks.
This Postdoctoral Research Associate post will tackle these two key strands of research, reporting directly to Professor David Edwards. It will tackle three main Objectives: (1) Develop and train a western Amazonian (Peruvian) logging detection algorithm; (2) project trajectories for wildfire-induced losses of timber production at global scale under a range of climate change scenarios (i.e., RCPs & SCPs); and (3) model timber production outcomes under altered production methods and scenarios, including more intensive production from within tropical forests.
The Postdoctoral Research Associate will work with large datasets (including remote-sensing products, forest plot and logging data, fire data, and climate change/economic projections) to deliver high-quality analyses and publish these in leading scientific journals. They will work with a high degree of independence, as appropriate seeking input from the research team of Prof Edwards, Dr Matt Hethcoat, and Dr Adam Pellegrini.
Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 30 months in the first instance. Click the ‘Apply’ button below to register an account with our recruitment system (if you have not already) and apply online.
Please notice that if you have not received any news from us 1 month after the closing date you should consider that on this occasion your application has not been successful. Please quote reference PD36964 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society. The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.
Further information
Further Particulars & Apply online Closing date: 30 June 2023