Natural Resources Job Board

Position Title: Postdoctoral Ecologist – Predicting wild bird strikes throughout airport airspaces

Job Description: We are looking for a post-doctoral ecologist to lead the development of models for predicting wild bird strikes in and around an airport’s airspace in space and time. The objective of the work is to provide risk assessment tools for guiding aviation managers in protecting public safety. The post-doctoral scientist will collate data, develop efficient data pipelines, and analyze data to estimate strike probability, the frequency component of a strike risk metric. This work will eventually be combined with strike severity to compose a strike risk metric and, thereby, provide means to prioritize bird-strike management actions and decision making for civil and military airport managers and wildlife biologists. The postdoctoral researcher will work at the forefront of human-wildlife interactions with quantitative ecologists and wildlife biologists from USDA-APHIS and Colorado State University (CSU) as well as aviation stakeholders and natural resource economists. The position is co-located at CSU and National Wildlife Research Center of USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services in Fort Collins, CO. 

Required qualifications: Applicants must have defended their Ph.D. in ecology, wildlife biology, conservation, statistics, data science or related fields, and have a strong record of publishing in peer-reviewed journals using ecological statistics or ecological modeling.  

Preferred qualifications: Preference will be given to applicants with documented experience using hierarchical statistical models, spatio-temporal models, machine learning, and developing data pipelines for large datasets. Experience with ecological forecasting, decision analysis, and working with natural resource management stakeholders would also be beneficial.

 

Essential job duties: Data management, analysis, and inference (40%), publication in peer-reviewed literature (40%), interaction with stakeholders (10%), mentoring and career development (10%).

 

Decision making: The Postdoctoral Associate will need to make day-to-day decisions about data management and data analysis without input from the PI & Collaborators. The Postdoctoral Associate will also be expected to make independent progress on developing scientific inference but will seek regular feedback and approval from the PI & Collaborators as those aspects of the research develop. The PI, APHIS collaborators and Postdoctoral Associate will work together on topics related to stakeholder interaction, mentoring, and career development.

How to apply: The official site for application will be released inlate July to mid-August and advertised until filled. Also please contact David Koons (David.Koons@colostate.edu) and Kim Pepin (kim.m.pepin@usda.gov) with a cover letter and CV. 

 

Start Date: as soon as possible. The option of remote working is not possible.

Salary: $70K USD, plus fringe benefits

 

Duration: Approximately 2 Years

Employee Benefits: Employee Benefit information can be found on HR’s Website at https://hr.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2021/02/benefits-summary-hourly.pdf and https://hr.colostate.edu/current-employees/benefits/.

 

 

CSU is an EO/EA/AA employer.

 

Colorado State University conducts background checks on all final candidates.