Junior Specialist

The Bren School of Environmental Science & Management is seeking to hire a highly qualified Junior Specialist in vector-borne disease modeling and land systems science with a particular focus on the impacts of climate and land use and land cover change on vector-borne disease risk and transmission in California and Latin America. The incumbent will be supervised by Dr. Andrew MacDonald in the Bren School at UCSB. The position will involve three primary job duties: 1) contribute to leading research efforts in spatial ecology and modeling of mosquito vector distributions and suitability (e.g. machine learning and species distribution modeling), 2) contribute to statistical modeling of the response of disease transmission to global change using earth observation data (e.g., in Google Earth Engine, GIS) and statistical modeling approaches for longitudinal data, and 3) contribute to writing of peer reviewed manuscripts and research grants relevant to the research projects that the incumbent will contribute to, and to advising of student researchers in the MacDonald lab group. The incumbent will be highly self-motivated and self-sufficient in an academic research setting with diverse responsibilities. Possible projects that the incumbent will contribute to leading include: 1) modeling and risk mapping of West Nile virus in California's Central Valley, and it's response to weather extremes; 2) modeling dengue transmission suitability, and potential future distribution of Aedes aegypti in California; 3) modeling the response of vector-borne diseases to land use change in the Amazon basin. The University is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching, and service as appropriate to the position.