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Located at the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in the 220-acre Sapsucker Woods sanctuary, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the world's leading resource for conservation, research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. The Lab is a vibrant unit within Cornell's College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, where several full-time faculty teach undergraduate courses, advise graduate students, and manage world-class, mission-driven programs. Our management and staff are committed to the highest standards of ethics and excellence in all areas of our work, and our Board leadership includes faculty from Cornell and other universities, successful entrepreneurs and managers from the business and non-profit sectors, and conservation-minded citizens from the United States and beyond. Information Science is one of eleven programmatic units that carry out the Lab’s mission to interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. The Information Science program develops data intensive techniques and applies them to massive quantities of bird observational data, with the goal of using these big data techniques for basic and/or applied research that contributes directly to the conservation of biological diversity at the species, population, or community level.
Position Title:
Postdoctoral Associate
Duties & Responsibilities:
The Information Science Program at the Lab of Ornithology is seeking a Postdoctoral Associate. Duties include: * Conducting original research in the field of statistics and machine learning to advance the understanding of species distributions for ecological studies and conservation planning. This position will be housed in the Information Science Program and the successful applicant will work within a team to develop innovative methods to estimate patterns of bird species abundance through space and time and utilizing the unique data resources available through the Information Science program. In particular, data to be used will come from the eBird database, a database containing information on counts of birds observed by a global network of volunteer observers. * Developing methods for estimating species abundance, which will be applied to data collected at continental extents by incorporating the estimation methods within the SpatioTemporal Exploratory Model (STEM) framework, an ensemble regression modeling technique, that seamlessly allows for spatio-temporally-varying relationships between potentially large suites of covariates and species occurrence and abundance data, across space and time. * An opportunity to collaborate with other researchers at the Lab of Ornithology to develop spatio-temporal distribution models using eBird data for application to conservation problems. * An exciting opportunity to work with very large and biologically meaningful datasets in the pursuit of applied conservation biology related to issues such as energy development/extraction (wind and natural gas), land-use changes, environmental contaminants, and endangered species biology. One-year term appointment: 8/1/13-7/31/14
Position Qualifications:
QUALIFICATIONS: * PhD in statistics, machine learning or a closely related field. * Passion for applying rigorous basic research in statistics and computer science to solve pressing issues of biodiversity conservation at the local, regional, and global levels. * A track record of independent research. * Familiarity with the analysis of spatially and temporally structured data. * Proficiency in R including experience in high performance computing environments. * Experience publishing packages is desired * Excellent oral and written communication skills. * Must have a record of successfully meeting schedules and milestones of research projects that involve multiple stages and several participants. * Must have a strong record of enhancing the performance of a multi-disciplinary research team and conducting research that supports the needs and mission of the program.
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APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Send a letter of application, complete resume, list of references to: Susan Taggart, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, 283A Johnson Center for Birds & Biodiversity, Ithaca, NY 14850. Inquiries about position specifics can be directed to Steve Kelling, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY 14850. Phone: 607-254-2478; Email stk2@cornell.edu. Review of applicants will continue until the position is filled.
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