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.
