środa, 8 maja 2019

PhD position, Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences


INSTITUTION: Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences, Sopot, Poland

POSITION: scholarship position, PhD student type

REQUIREMENTS:
·        Master's level of studies in discipline related to the project’s scope (e.g., bioinformatics)
·        Experience and interest in ecology/biology (and/or earth sciences)
·     Good skills in statistics including multidimensional analyses (e.g., PCA, ANOSIM, RDA, t-sne, ANOVA, Hierarchical Clustering, etc.)
·    Experience in programming languages (e.g., R, Matlab, Python etc.) and in modeling (preferably shortly illustrated in portfolio)
·       Very good level of written and oral English language
·       Experience in publishing scientific results
·      Good communication skills, high motivation for work in interdisciplinary team/scope, passion for science, creativity

In addition to the above formal requirements, the candidate is expected to represent:
- education in the broad range of biological and ecological sciences and sincere interest in the use of numerical methods for a better understanding of the processes that shape marine ecosystems;
- high degree of motivation, communicativeness, creativity, reliability, diligence, punctuality, the ability to work both independently and in a team, and the ability to critically evaluate the obtained results;
- involvement in the field work in difficult conditions (e.g., seasickness, limited space on the research ship) and non-standard working hours (e.g., night shifts during cruises, travelling to and/or participating conferences during the weekend) and no health contraindications to work at sea;
- active participation in conferences, festivals and other forms of dissemination of project’s results and preparation of scientific publications in English at a high, international level.

Moreover, after the acceptance of the candidate she/he must meet the conditions of the regulations for granting research scholarships in research projects financed by the NCN funds, in particular:

PROJECT/JOB DESCRIPTION:
Project title: Changes in the structure and functioning of pelagic ecosystems affected by water darkening due to glacier/river runoff in the fjords of European Arctic (CoastDark)

Project description: The objective of the project is to analyse the influence of water darkening, due to the intensified glacier/river runoff, on the functioning of the marine pelagic food webs in the Arctic coastal waters. The aim is to quantify how the share of living plankton organisms in relation to mineral and organic particles will change along the gradient from the glacier/river discharge towards the open waters in the fjords of the western Spitsbergen. The project sampling will be carried out during two summer campaigns (July, 2019 & 2020) from the R/V “Oceania” in different fjords of the west Spitsbergen (e.g., Hornsund, Adventfjord, Kongsfjord). The investigation will be performed by the application of both modern optical methods and traditional oceanographic approaches. The water content at particular stations and depth water layers will be attributed to several traits: size, type (mineral vs organic, living vs dead) and composition. The final project result will be a model that will simulate the composition of various seawater components under different environmental scenarios.

Job description: Active participation in lab work, data collection (cruises) and preliminary analysis. Leading role in the design of a numerical model dealing with the content of “glacial soup” (plankton vs. suspended matter) in the Arctic coastal waters concerning various environmental  scenarios. Implementation, testing and validation of the model and numerical calculations. Active participation in summary, presentation and publication of project results.

FOUNDING SOURCE: NCN, OPUS-NZ
EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS:
Scholarship in the amount of PLN 4 500 PLN per month, paid for 36 months. The scholarship can start between July and October 2019.
During being a beneficiary of the NCN scholarship at the maximum level, which is planned within this project, the candidate cannot receive any other remuneration from the NCN's funds (under a contract of employment and/or civil law contracts).
Applications should be submitted by 14th June 2019, 4:00 p.m., via e-mail to the following addresses: kasiab@iopan.pl (project’s co-ordinator) and/or dob@iopan.pl with a title: "PhD student – CoastDark".
We will contact selected candidates by email by 17th July 2019.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS:
1) Cover letter
2) Curriculum vitae with a list of achievements (including the list of publications and description of skills useful in the project, in which the candidate has experience)
3) Master's degree diploma (a copy will be needed in August/September 2019 in order to meet NCN requirements for PhD studies)
4) Short and concise 'portoflio' illustrating the previous research experience (part of conference/seminar/poster presentation)
5) At least one recommendation letter and/or opinion on the candidate from the previous supervisor (of MSc thesis) or former directors with whom the applicant has previously cooperated with the contact details
6) Information clause on the processing of personal data (http://www.iopan.gda.pl/praca/INFORMATION_ON_THE_PROCESSING_OF_PERSONAL_DATA.pdf) together with the signed consent (signed scan) - http://www.iopan.gda.pl/praca/CONSENT_CLAUSE.pdf

All required documents should be saved in one PDF file.

The detailed conditions of employment are defined in the "Regulations for granting scholarships in research projects financed from the resources of the National Science Centre determined by the decision of the NCN Council no. 96/2016 of October 27, 2016."

The competition will be settled by 15th July 2019. The candidate who receives the highest number of points on the ranking list will be employed. Employment may be offered to the next person on the ranking list in a situation when the laureate of the competition resigns from signing the scholarship agreement.