Grad Student & Post-doc Summer Course: Assimilating Long-Term Data into Ecosystem Models

[Melanie Colón]

Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 12:42:21 -0400

Reply-To: Jody Peters

Sender: "Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news"

From: Jody Peters

Subject: Grad Student & Post-doc Summer Course: Assimilating Long-Term

Data into Ecosystem Models

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Grad Student & Post-doc Summer Course: Assimilating Long-Term Data into

Ecosystem Models

 

Offered by: PaleoEcological Observatory Network (PalEON:paleonproject.org)

 

Dates: August 17-23, 2014

 

Course description: Estimating the impact of global change processes like

land-use and climate on terrestrial ecosystems requires an integration of

long-term data and ecosystem models. This course will provide 20 graduate

students and postdocs with intensive training in the emerging tools that

allow us to:

 

-estimate the signal and uncertainty in historical and paleoecological data

-assimilate both signal and uncertainty into the current suite of

terrestrial ecosystem models

 

The course has a hands-on, integrated curriculum emphasizing the data/model

process from design through data collection, analysis and back to design. We

will collect tree-rings, historical survey data and sedimentary data (e.g.,

pollen, charcoal, and macrofossils). Analysis of these data will take place

in a Bayesian mode of inference addressing uncertainty in age-models,

calibration of proxy data, and integration of diverse historical data. After

an introduction to inference from ecosystem models in traditional "forward"

mode, participants will integrate ecological parameters estimated from their

data sets into these ecosystem models using formal Bayesian data

assimilation.

 

Participating faculty: Mike Dietze (Boston University); Steve Jackson (U.S.

Geological Survey and University of Arizona); Jason McLachlan (University of

Notre Dame); Chris Paciorek (University of California Berkeley); Jack

Williams (University of Wisconsin)

 

Location: University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center, Land

O'Lakes, WI, USA.

 

Fees: This workshop is funded by a grant from the National Science

Foundation and is free to participants. You must provide your own means of

transportation to Chicago, Illinois or Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Application: We are seeking students with interests and backgrounds in

paleoecology, terrestrial ecosystem modeling, and/or statistics. Send a CV,

a statement detailing why you want to take the course and how you anticipate

it helping your research, and arrange to have a letter sent

from your major advisor supporting your application.

 

Apply to: Jody Peters at peters.63@nd.edu

 

Deadline: February 15, 2014. Selected candidates will be announced by March

1, 2014.

 

For more: https://www3.nd.edu/~paleolab/paleonproject/summer-course/