21 Graduate Assistantships - M.S. or Ph.D.

Sustainability of Nonindustrial Private Forests:
A Regional Consortium Project Involving Three Major Universities
Be a member of a multi-disciplinary team involved in an exciting, comprehensive approach to graduate education, research and service!

• Be part of a project that will address in a holistic and systematic fashion environmental and socioeconomic issues associated with private land in a region with 340 million acres in small, fragmented, ownerships.
  
  
• Contribute information for use in the development of a computer-assisted decision model that provides quantitative and visual projections of the outcomes and impacts of natural resource management decisions by private landowners over several time periods and at local and landscape levels using biological, economic and social data.
  
  
• Be involved in an interdisciplinary research project incorporating cutting edge technology (GIS and computer modeling) and client driven research needs identified through participatory research to develop natural resource decision making mechanisms for private landowners and related interests.
  

Our universities- The University of Missouri-Columbia - Department of Forestry, University of Tennessee-Knoxville - Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries and Purdue University -
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources are implementing a major initiative to conduct research, teaching and outreach activities related to the sustainability of nonindustrial private forests and other wildlands in the Central Hardwoods Region. This initiative is federally funded for a 4-year period through the USDA Cooperative States Research, Education, and Extension Service.

Research will be directed at target issues (listed below) critical to the development of sustainable forest management alternatives. Information will be synthesized into a multi-attribute, computer-based decision-support system that will incorporate social, economic and environmental characteristics of private landowners and resources.

Assistantships are available at each institution in the following target research areas:

• Collaborative Planning and Policy
• Human Dimensions
• Natural Resource Values
• Forest Taxes
• Landscape Fragmentation
• Agroforestry / Forest Farming
• Best Management Practices
• Decision Support Tools

We are looking for students of the highest quality with interests in forest ecology, economics and management, human dimensions of natural resources including sociology, policy and collaborative planning, vertebrate ecology, and computer modeling. Successful applicants will be part of an interdisciplinary team conducting research within a targeted watershed in each of the respective states as well as members of a more disciplinary-specific team comprised of scientists from all three consortium institutions and collaborating agencies. In addition, each successful applicant will be involved in outreach activities associated with the project in their respective state and will participate in course design and delivery of an on-campus course that will be developed at each campus.

Successful applicants will receive the stipend associated with graduate study at each of the respective institutions. In addition, all tuition charges will be paid with each assistantship. All participants will be expected to complete applicable safety training as well as human subjects training at their respective institutions.

Please email a letter of interest and CV to one of the principal investigators listed below. In your letter, indicate the graduate degree and target area(s) for which you are interested in being considered. Also, please indicate to which universities you are interested in applying, and the order of your preference if you are interested in more than one. The CV should contain relevant courses and work experience, as well as GPA and GRE scores and contact information (including email addresses) for 3 three references. This information will be shared among the three institutions during the initial screening process to ensure equitable treatment of applications and to achieve the most appropriate balance of research interests and capabilities.

Consideration of applicants will commence on 15 February and continue until the positions are filled.

For more information contact:
Sustaining Private Forests
The School of Natural Resources
University of Missouri-Columbia
124 Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building
Columbia, Missouri 65211
Phone 573 882-7045

All institutions are equal access/equal opportunity/affirmative action employers fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce