The post-doctoral candidate will work on the project “HydroBalance - Large-scale balancing and energy storage from Norwegian hydropower” in a team consisting of national and international partners. The project aims at answering key questions regarding the future use of hydropower, including pump storage development between reservoirs. The post-doctoral position will be placed within the ecological work package “Methods and models for environmental impacts in reservoirs”. The project is supported by the Research Council of Norway and is a part of the interdisciplinary research centre CEDREN (Centre for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy), where NINA is one of three main research partners.
Aquatic ecosystems are shaped by complex interactions between several natural and anthropogenic factors, including both environmental variables and interactions within the biological community. It is not trivial to separate effects resulting from hydropower production, natural environmental variation or other anthropogenic impacts. In this project, we will use fish populations as ecological indicators when studying impacts from hydropower regulation on reservoirs. The aim of the postdoctoral research is to investigate how interactions within lake fish communities differ along environmental gradients, and how such environmental variation might alter hydropower impacts. The work will combine ecological modelling and fieldwork (e.g. gill net-fishing, hydro-acoustics and stable isotope analyses), as well as working with large-scale historical databases on fish population and environmental variables.
For the position, we seek a candidate that has a completed PhD degree (or equivalent) and has experience in quantitative ecology. The candidate should preferentially have experience in fish ecology research and be skilled in stable isotope analyses, as well as in statistical or dynamic modelling of ecological systems. Our ideal candidate is motivated to combine applied research with more fundamental ecological research, with the ambition to acquire new skills and experiences, and publish papers in leading international journals. Familiarity with Scandinavian languages and nature management is an asset. Applicants are invited for a 3-yr position of which 75 % of the work will be on the HydroBalance project and 25 % on other projects at NINA.
NINA is Norway’s leading institution in applied ecological research and has approximately 215 employees. The Department for Aquatic Ecology, located in Trondheim, has more than 40 scientists, postdocs, PhD students and research assistants. CEDREN is one of eight centres that are part of the scheme Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME). More information on NINA and CEDREN can be found at www.nina.no and www.cedren.no.
Candidates should submit their application with references via e-mail to siri.svendsen@nina.no, attaching scanned documentation on education, exams (including major grades), relevant experience, and a publication list. Selected scientific publications in pdf-format may also be attached. The applicants should also provide a short (max 500 words) description of the reasons why he or she is particularly suited for the position. Selected candidates will be invited for interview.
NINA works actively for gender balance in our research staff, and therefore women are encouraged to apply. The annual salary of a postdoctoral fellow is NOK 518 500 to 528 700 and NINA offers good pension and insurance schemes. For more information, please contact researchers Ingeborg P. Helland (+47 97 65 48 20
, e-mail: Ingeborg.helland@nina.no) or Anders G. Finstad (phone: +47 90 01 85 46, e-mail: anders.finstad@nina.no).
Application deadline is 10 November 2013, and we aim for rapid employm