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UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Professional Development Courses

The world has a water quality problem. Rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, and groundwaters are under more pressure than ever as humans rely utterly on the resources they provide. Do you want to know more about monitoring global aquatic ecosystems and resources? If so, you could take a professional development course with the UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre at University College Cork.

GEMS, the Global Environmental Monitoring System for Water has been operating since 1972, and its Capacity Development Centre (CDC) offers training and education programmes for water professionals around the world. While our programmes range from free-to-all, downloadable handbooks to an MSc in Freshwater Quality Monitoring, some of our most popular courses are our six Continuous Professional Development modules.

These 12-week courses are fully online and fully accredited by University College Cork. As a collection, they comprise a comprehensive overview of the techniques and best practices in freshwater quality monitoring and they are an excellent springboard to further, post-graduate education, advancing in your career.

You should apply for these courses if:

– You are a professional already working in the water sector and want to improve your knowledge OR

– You have a background in science and want to explore opportunities in freshwater quality monitoring and assessment.

Note that for students from developing countries, we offer reduced fees and bursaries; if you are approved for both, you can take a course with us completely FREE!

See CPDShortCourses and contact us at gemscdcadmin@ucc.ie for more information. The deadline for applications for our autumn courses is 31 July, 2023.

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Harmful Algal Blooms Nutrient Ecology

Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research
School for Environment and Sustainability
University of Michigan
 
Summary
A postdoctoral fellowship is available for a highly qualified individual to join the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR, https://ciglr.seas.umich.edu/). The successful candidate will work with a team at CIGLR and the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) to improve models of how nutrient availability and nutrient imbalance affect harmful algal blooms. Numerous studies have found direct or correlative evidence that available phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) concentrations, or alternatively the N:P ratio, drive bloom biomass, community composition, and toxin concentration. However, parsing the effect of each of these drivers from environmental sampling data is problematic because;

  1. Available N, P, and N:P (measure of imbalance) are covariate through time, particularly during bloom periods.
  2. These effects are strongly scale-dependent.
  3. The outcomes from such investigations are often counter-intuitive or do not match the causal mechanisms as understood from mechanistic laboratory experiments.

The candidate will apply complementary statistical methodologies to separate the effects of N and P concentrations, and imbalance in N:P, on bloom biomass, community composition, and toxin concentration using our long-term dataset from western Lake Erie and potentially other datasets.  In addition to statistical modeling, the candidate will assist with planning and overseeing laboratory chemostat experiments using Microcystis isolates from Lake Erie.

Required Qualifications
  • A Ph.D. in natural sciences with research experience in limnology, plankton or aquatic microbial ecology, or a similar field.
  • Research or graduate experience in contemporary statistical modeling techniques (e.g. Bayesian multilevel models, path analysis, causal analysis).
  • Familiarity with data analysis and visualization in a scripting environment using R, Python, or similar software.
  • Demonstrated ability to analyze data and lead the writing of manuscripts for refereed journal publication.

Desired Qualifications

  • Experience with harmful algal blooms and nutrients
  • Experience with confronting environmental data with predictions from laboratory experiments or physiological mechanisms
  • Experience working with chemostat cultures (not necessarily phytoplankton)
For more information and to apply:
The application deadline is 7/01/2023.
——
Margaret Throckmorton (she | hers)
Administrative Project Coordinator
University of Michigan
Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR)
@ NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL)
4840 South State Road | Ann Arbor, MI 48108
734.647.3299

2023 PACE Applications Virtual Workshop

The 4th annual PACE Applications Workshop, scheduled virtually September 6-7 on the Swapcard platform. Registration is open; we hope that you all attend! Find out more and register here: https://pace.oceansciences.org/events_more.htm?id=56

  • When you register you’ll see a prompt about the poster session – this year it will be run differently and will be open to the entire PACE community. We encourage you to participate and share how you’ve been preparing for launch!