The Larsen Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara (http://www.ashleylarsen.com/; google scholar) is seeking a motivated PhD student to join the lab in Fall 2022. Our lab studies agricultural land use and land use change, including intensification, extensification and abandonment of agriculture, as it relates to biodiversity, conservation, and the provision of ecosystem services. Members of the lab work on a range of projects linked by the use of computational and quantitative methods.
Competitive applicants will have prior experience, or strong motivation to gain experience, in GIS, remote sensing, causal inference, and/or statistics, and some background in either ecology or geography. Based on available funding, we particularly welcome students interested in applying data-driven statistical and spatial methods to better understand agricultural abandonment and the ecological drivers and implications of restoration on abandoned fields, though we will consider a broad range of research interests within landscape, restoration or agricultural ecology or geography.
Interested applicants would apply to UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. The Bren School (http://www.esm.ucsb.edu/) is a highly regarded environmental science program with faculty and students that work across a spectrum of natural, physical, and social sciences. Students will be encouraged to develop independent research projects within the lab’s broad umbrella, and will have the opportunity to engage in multidisciplinary collaborations with researchers across Bren, UCSB, and beyond.
If interested, please send a current CV with research and coding experiences, relevant coursework, and GPA, and a short statement describing your research interests to Ashley Larsen ([email protected]). For those eligible, please note if you have applied for the 2021 NSF GRFP competition or other fellowship opportunities. Applications are due December 15, 2021. Students with diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to reach out and apply!