[Ecoinfo] Postdoctoral researcher, Knowledge Representation, UC Santa Barbara

Matt Jones jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
Thu Mar 31 14:59:14 PST 2005


POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
Postdoctoral Researcher
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
University of California at Santa Barbara

Consideration of applications begins immediately and will continue
until the position is filled.
See http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/fmt/doc?/nceas-web/opportunity/

We seek a postdoctoral research scientist to conduct research
and software development in the area of knowledge representation for
the ecological sciences. This work will be done as part of an ongoing
research program in ecological informatics.  The successful
candidate will be funded on a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
foundation to research knowledge representation systems for
ecology in collaboration with the NSF-funded Science Environment for
Ecological Knowledge (SEEK) project (http://seek.ecoinformatics.org).
Principal research areas include: knowledge representation approaches
and systems for expressing semantic information about heterogeneous
ecological data and analyses; ecological ontologies; and techniques
for leveraging ecological ontologies in data integration and analysis
systems.  The successful candidate will help to research and design
effective knowledge models for ecological data, particularly as
related to ecological niche modeling and biodiversity modeling.
These knowledge models will be used in the Kepler scientific workflow
environment to facilitate data discovery, data integration, and
analysis.

We require familiarity in quantitative ecology and knowledge
representation (or related areas of computer science), with expertise
in at least one of these fields. Experience with the following areas
is also beneficial: markup languages and reasoning approaches for
knowledge representation (e.g., OWL); metadata systems, database
modeling and design, and software programming; emerging web and
Internet technologies (e.g., XML, XML Schema, and Web Services);
statistical analysis and modeling for complex ecological data;
software engineering languages, including Java and/or C/C++; and
the Ecological Metadata Language (EML).

The postdoctoral researcher is expected to collaborate closely
with the principal investigators and project software engineers,
be productive, flexible, highly organized, independent, and
creative.  Additional information about the project is available at
"http://seek.ecoinformatics.org".

A Ph.D. in some field of ecology, environmental science, earth
science, or computer science is required.  Excellent communication
and interpersonal skills are critical.  Experience with large
collaborative research projects is beneficial.  Initial funding
is for two years at 100% FTE, with the opportunity to participate
in the development of additional research projects in the field of
ecological informatics.  Moderate travel is required to collaborate
with other project researchers and present at scientific meetings.

Interested applicants should submit: (1) a letter of application,
(2) a statement of how her/his educational and research experience
qualify the applicant for the position, and (3) a recent curriculum
vitae.  In addition, the applicant should have three letters of
reference submitted on her/his behalf.

Screening of applications will begin immediately, and proceed until
the position is filled.  Electronic submission of applications and
supporting letters is strongly preferred, and should be directed
to allfree at nceas.ucsb.edu.  Mailed submissions should be directed
to Leslie Allfree, NCEAS - UCSB Ecology Center, 735 State Street,
Suite 300, Santa Barbara, CA  93101-5504 USA.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action
Employer



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