Postdoctoral researcher in Limnology specialized in lake modeling - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The Department of Ecology and Genetics has an international environment with staff and students from all over the world. Our research spans from evolutionary ecology and genetics to studies of ecosystems. For more information, see www.ieg.uu.se.

The Limnology research program carries out research in aquatic community ecology, microbial ecology, and biogeochemistry. Our research focuses on both basic understanding of the ecology of lakes as well as applied research that can aid lake and reservoir management. There are extensive laboratory facilities to support all three research areas. The Lake Erken field station has a long record of limnological research, including a lake monitoring program. The research program in Limnology is searching for a postdoctoral researcher in lake modeling.

Project description: The candidate will participate in three projects underway at the Department of Limnology. Common to the projects is that they use mathematical models to predict lake hydrothermal structure and lake water quality. All projects will make use of similar data sets, and modeling methods, and all projects are concerned with the coupling between weather, climate, lake physics and lake ecology.

- The project PROGNOS (www.prognoswater.org) is developing methods to use data collected by high frequency automated lake monitoring systems to improve lake model parameterization and initialization. Such models when driven with weather forecasts produce short term forecasts of lake water quality that can aid water management.
- The project WATExR has similar goals but is concerned with probabilistic forecasts at seasonal time scales.  Extensive time series of data to test, calibrate and verify models are available from the Erken laboratory (http://www.ieg.uu.se/erken-laboratory/ ), and these data are used in our modeling activities.
- Lake modelers at the Department of Limnology are helping to coordinate lake sector simulations in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (https://www.isimip.org/), which will make a wide-ranging evaluation of the effects of climate change on lakes.  As part of this effort, the candidate will be involved in simulating future climate conditions in Lake Erken, and cooperating with others working in the ISIMIP network. The postdoctoral candidate will work as part of a group also consisting of MSc and PhD. students. 

Duties:

• Running existing hydrothermal and water quality models set up for Lake Erken, and developing model setups for other lakes of interest.

• Developing model optimization methods that will improve model performance when simulating water temperature and water quality, and which are appropriate for use at all three time scales of interest: short-term, seasonal, and future climate.

• Run long-term historical and future climate scenarios on Lake Erken using data sets obtained from the ISIMIP project.

• Support ongoing work in the PROGNOS, WATExR, and ISIMIP projects.

Qualifications required: For this position the candidate must hold a PhD degree  in Limnology, Oceanography, Civil Engineering, Environmental Science, or a related subject. We are looking for a person with excellent collaboration skills. The candidate is expected to take a leading role in the group and help members achieve common goals. Candidates must be fluent in spoken as well as written English. We put great emphasis on personal suitability as cooperation, independence and a constructive approach.

To be eligible the candidate must have a PhD degree, or a foreign degree equivalent to this, completed less than three years before the application deadline. If there are special reasons the three year period can be extended in time. Special reasons can for example include leave due to illness, parental leave, work within a union.

Qualifications desired: It is desired if the candidate have experience with numerical lake modes, literate in computer programing and experience in FORTRAN and PYTHON a plus. The ability to manipulate and analyze large data sets produced by numerical models and interest in societal issues related to climate change and water management is a merit.

Position: This is a fulltime temporary position for 24 months. Individual salaries applied.

Access: February 1, 2018 or as agreed.

Instructions for the application: The application should include Example: 1) a letter of intent describing yourself, your research interests and motivation of why you want to work as a postdoctoral researcher and why you are suitable for the position, 2) a CV 3) a short description of your education, 4) a copy of your PhD degree and grades, 5) name and contact information to at least two reference persons (e-mail address and phone no.), 6) a copy of your thesis and 7) relevant publications. The application should be written in English.

Uppsala University aims for gender balance and diversity in all activities in order to achieve a higher quality at all levels of the organization. We therefore welcome applicants of any gender and with different birth background, functionality and life experience.

For further information about the position please contact: Dr. Don Pierson don.pierson@ebe.uu.se +46 (0)18 471 5399

You are welcome to submit your application no later than 31 december 2017 UFV-PA 2017/4120.

In the event of any disagreement between the English and the Swedish versions of this announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.