- Where
- Penn State University Park
- Level
- New grad
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:
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CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, please login to Workday to complete the student application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.
If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click “Apply” and complete the application process for external applicants .
Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants .
This is a term position; length of the term will be discussed during the interview process. Continuation past the term length discussed will be based on university need, performance, and/or availability of funding.
POSITION SPECIFICS
Duties Place
The primary work location will be the University Park Campus of Penn State University, PA. Approximately 10% of the work will require travel for research collaboration (e.g. potentially to other universities in the US involved in this project including University of Minnesota and Duke University, as well as to meetings in Southern Africa as needed).
The position is in-person , with Penn State as duty location; however, some flexibility may be considered. While part of the work can be performed virtually with a flexible work location, Penn State University policy requires employees to live primarily in Pennsylvania.
Job Duties
We are recruiting a postdoctoral associate who will work on an NSF DISES-funded project titled “Socioecological Outcomes of Restoration: Discovering the interplay among biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional dimensions of dryland forest-grassland landscapes”. This is a collaborative research project between Penn State (Ida Djenontin and Erica Smithwick), Duke University (Tong Qiu), University of Minnesota (Forrest Fleischman), University of Witswatersrand (Wayne Twine) and LUANAR (Judith Kamoto). The postdoctoral associate will report to Ida Djenontin (main mentor) while benefiting from a co-mentorship arrangement across disciplines to strengthen applications and further learning of integrative methods.
The initial term of appointment will be for 1 year , with possibility of renewal for an additional year contingent on performance and funding availability. The postdoctoral associate will focus on analyzing the socio-ecological impacts of ecosystem restoration in mosaic forest-grassland ecosystems and design appropriate monitoring frameworks, in collaboration with scientists located at several institutions in the US, Africa, and beyond whose goals include understanding tradeoffs in social and ecological outcomes.
The work will involve analyzing empirical primary social and ecological data on ecosystem restoration processes and outcomes collected in Malawi and South Africa from (i) household and community surveys, (ii) semi-structured qualitative interviews, (iii) ecological surveys from forests and farms, (iv) remote sensing of land cover change, and (v) other secondary data. The specific expertise, skills, and interest of the candidate will further determine this process. Deliverables expected from this position include the generation of both integrative scientific research publications and practical policy insights. The incumbent will also coordinate with other members of the research team and engage in outreach.
The postdoctoral associate will receive training in scientific publication, grant-writing and outreach, relevant research techniques and skills, and have opportunities to build connections with broader networks of scholars studying restoration social science in general, and particularly the network of ecosystem restoration scientists collaborating on this project.
(75%)…