Postdoctoral Research Fellow

This new full-time post is available from 1 October 2024 until 30 September 2026 on a fixed-term basis.

The post
The Faculty wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to support the work of Dr Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury.

The successful candidate will implement an exciting and novel conservation project at the interface between citizen science, social science, art and philosophy. Specifically, our research aims to understand the importance of private residential gardens for pollinator conservation in a semi-urban environment in the UK. We will use a village in Cornwall as our study system to experimentally test how an award-winning artwork (see Pollinator Pathmaker (PP) at https://pollinator.art/) can conserve pollinator diversity in limited and fragmented urban green spaces, and how these PP plantings empower the public to engage in nature-positive actions.

The successful candidate will lead the ecological component of the project, which includes developing, planning, implementing field research on plant-pollinator networks in residential gardens, focussing on interaction data collection, insect pollinator identification and handling; development and design of data collection software; complex modelling and interaction network analysis.

The post will include working closely and supervising a graduate research assistant hired under the project and the PI to oversee the ecological part of the research project, facilitate the communication between the research team, project partners, contractors and the participants. The post will be based at the University of Exeter in the internationally excellent Centre for Conservation and Ecology (https://ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/).

About you
The successful applicant will have a keen interest in applied and theoretical network ecology, conservation, and working with the community. Further, the successful applicant will be able to develop research objectives, projects and proposals; identify sources of research funding and contribute to the process of securing funds and make presentations at conferences and other events.

Applicants will hold a PhD in Ecology, Environmental Science or Biology, or possess equivalent qualifications or experience in a related field of study and be able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the discipline and of research methods and techniques to work within established research programmes. Applicants will be able to work collaboratively and assist with the work of others when needed. In addition, applicants will be familiar with UK plants and pollinators, handle insect pollinators confidently, have very strong analytical skills (programming and statistics in R); have used spatial and online data collection apps (e.g. Cybertracker) in the past, and thrive on interdisciplinarity.

Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role.

The University of Exeter
We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 200 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 and QS World University Ranking 2024). We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2023, underpinned by gold ratings for Student Experience and Student Outcomes.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment
We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community.

We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and welcome applications from service people.

Further information
For further information please contact Dr Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury, e-mail c.kaiser-bunbury@exeter.ac.uk or telephone (01326) 255245.

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