Ph.D. Assistant

Job Description: One Ph.D. assistantship is available for a project aimed at developing multispecies (birds and mammals) monitoring protocols for forest, grassland, and wetland ecosystems in Pennsylvania.  The student on this grant will be expected to develop a research question related to population or community ecology and/or wildlife conservation consistent with the goals of the overarching monitoring study.  The project will be carried out as a partnership among SUNY ESF, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  The graduate student will collaborate with post-doctoral scientists, faculty, and wildlife biologists and managers employed by all the project partners.  The student will work very closely with the project’s bio-acoustician who will be housed at University of Pittsburgh and who will provide support for all aspects of the project involving acoustic data. In addition to data collected for this project, the student will have access to several years of retrospective audio data from over 1000 listening stations across Pennsylvania.  One Graduate Assistantship will be available to start in August 2023. The research will entail the use of autonomous recording units and trail cameras and machine learning classifiers for a broad assemblage of bird and mammal species.  The successful applicant will teach for the first two fall semesters and will be supported on a mix of Graduate Research Assistantship and teaching assistantships thereafter.  They will join a department with a large, active group of wildlife faculty and graduate students focused on filling critical knowledge gaps for wildlife management agencies and conservation organizations.

Qualifications: Applicants must have a M.S. in Wildlife, Conservation Biology, Biology, or similar area.   Experience with field studies involving autonomous monitoring of wildlife (audio recording and trail cameras) desirable. 

Interested applicants should submit the following: letter of interest, names and contact information of three references, unofficial transcripts, GRE scores (optional), and CV to Dr. Jonathan Cohen. Selected applicants will need to apply to the SUNY ESF Graduate School before acceptance.

Application emails: jcohen14@esf.edu Salary: Starting $23,749/yr, tuition waiver with annual increase, health benefits. Last Date to apply: May 15 2023 Contact: Dr. Jonathan Cohen (jcohen14@esf.edu)
E-mail: jcohen14@esf.edu(Preferred)
Phone: 315-470-6737 (Cohen)