[Coral-List] Ph.D. Scholarships available: Effects of physical disturbances on ecological communities

[Joshua Madin]

Ph.D. Scholarships available: Effects of physical disturbances on  
ecological communities

Two Ph.D. scholarships are available in the Department of Biological  
Sciences at Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) for research  
exploring the role of physical disturbances in structuring ecological  
communities.  The scholarships are available to both Australian and  
international students.  Students will be supervised by Dr. Josh  
Madin, whose research focuses in large part on modelling the effects  
of hydrodynamic disturbances (e.g., cyclones) on the biological and  
physical structure of coral reef communities.  Students will not be  
limited to working within coral reef systems, but rather will be  
encouraged to address related questions in coral reefs and/or other  
ecological systems.  The students will be joining a research group  
that uses data from many scientific fields in order to tackle broader- 
scale questions.  Therefore, students will also be encouraged to work  
on novel informatics techniques to aid in large-scale data integration  
and analysis.

It is anticipated that students will conduct fieldwork and explore  
modelling approaches in pursuit of their research questions.  For this  
reason, field experience and strong quantitative skills (including  
mathematical modelling, computer programming, and statistics) are  
desirable.  Information on Dr. Madin’s research interests and past/ 
current projects can be found at www.bio.mq.edu.au/ 
computational_ecology.  Interested students should then contact him  
and include a complete CV (including relevant coursework, research  
experience, and any publications) as well as a brief summary of their  
research interests.  For further information, please email Dr. Madin  
directly at jmadin at bio.mq.edu.au.


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Joshua S. Madin
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
Sydney, NSW, 2109
Australia

Phone: +61 2 9850-4258
Email: jmadin at bio.mq.edu.au