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*PhD projects available at the UK’s National Centre for Statistical Ecology* We are looking to recruit well-qualified and innovative research students, to start PhD study at any date up to March 2012. Funding is available for a limited number of students. This funding is open to international students. Students from the European Union will be fully funded, while funding for non-EU students will include full stipend and partial fees. The stipend will be paid for a period of 3.5 years, and will be enhanced relative to the standard UK research council stipend by UKŁ3000 per year. Thus for 2010/11, the enhanced stipend will be UKŁ16,590 for the year. The National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE, http://www.ncse.org.uk/) is a multi-institution research centre, established in 2005 as a joint venture, funded by EPSRC (a UK research council), between the Universities of Kent, Cambridge and St Andrews. Funding for a further five years has just been announced by EPSRC, in association with NERC, which allows us to expand the Centre, to include the Universities of Bath, Sheffield, Glasgow, Exeter and Bristol, together with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. (Following departure of staff, Cambridge is no longer a member.) There are currently around 35 research students in NCSE. Each available project falls within one or more of the following six research themes: 1. Biodiversity monitoring methodologies 2. Spatial and spatio-temporal models for ecological communities 3. Parameter redundancy, model diagnosis and model averaging in ecological models 4. New statistics methodology 5. Stochastic models for population dynamics 6. Movement models to exploit large tracking databases Project titles and supervisors are listed below. Further details of the projects are given under ‘News/vacancies’ at http://www.ncse.org.uk . Applications should normally be made through the institution of the first-listed supervisor for a given project, with a copy of your cover letter and cv to be sent to the NCSE Director. Supervisor email addresses can be found by clicking on ‘People’ at http://www.ncse.org.uk/. We also encourage students to approach us with their own suggestions for projects. If we believe that the proposed work fits well with the aims of NCSE, and we can identify an NCSE supervisor with relevant expertise, we will consider such applications along with applications for one of the listed projects. In this case, you may either contact your preferred supervisor directly, or send your proposal to one of the NCSE Co-Directors, Steve Buckland ([log in to unmask]) or Byron Morgan ([log in to unmask]). *Deadline for submissions to be considered for the first round of funding is Jan 15th 2011* List of projects: Theme 1. Biodiversity monitoring methodologies 1.1. Improved measures of biodiversity Supervisors: Prof PG Blackwell, University of Sheffield; Dr JB Illian, University of St Andrews 1.2. Ecosystem services and resilience Supervisors: Prof EM Scott, University of Glasgow; Dr RI Smith and Dr JMcP Dick, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Prof AE Magurran, University of St Andrews 1.3. A spatial point process approach to vegetation mapping Supervisors: Dr RI Smith, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Dr JB Illian, University of St Andrews 1.4. Novel techniques in the analysis of spatial and temporal changes in butterfly abundance Supervisors: Prof BJT Morgan, University of Kent; Dr Stephen Freeman and Dr David Roy, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology 1.5. New analytical methods for estimating key ecological parameters from camera trapping data Supervisors: Prof BJT Morgan, University of Kent; Dr M Rowcliffe, Institute of Zoology; Prof MS Ridout, University of Kent Theme 2. Spatial and spatio-temporal models for ecological communities 2.1. Multi-species integrated population models Supervisors: Prof ST Buckland and Dr R King, University of St Andrews; Dr S Newson, British Trust for Ornithology 2.2. Assessment of environmental impact on animal populations given imperfect detectability Supervisors: Dr EA Rexstad, Prof ST Buckland and Dr ML Mackenzie, University of St Andrews 2.3. Statistical issues in agent-based modelling Supervisor: Prof PG Blackwell, University of Sheffield 2.4. Spatio-temporal modelling of forest eco-system monitoring data Supervisor: Dr NH Augustin, University of Bath 2.5. Spatio-temporal ecological modelling over river systems Supervisors: Prof AW Bowman, University of Glasgow; Dr M Brewer, BioSS 2.6. Uncertainty in coral reef modelling Supervisor: Prof PG Blackwell, University of Sheffield Theme 3. Parameter redundancy, model diagnosis and model averaging in ecological models 3.1. Advanced MCMC methods for statistical ecology applications Supervisors: Prof WJ Browne, University of Bristol; Dr R King, University of St Andrews 3.2. Model assessment for hidden process models Supervisors: Dr DJ Cole and Prof BJT Morgan, University of Kent 3.3. Model evaluation for hidden process models Supervisors: Dr RS McCrea and Prof BJT Morgan, University of Kent Theme 4. New statistics methodology 4.1. Distributed systems and algorithms for Monte Carlo inference in statistical ecology Supervisors: Dr L Thomas, University of St Andrews; Dr RB Gramacy, University of Chicago 4.2. Sample size calculations and statistical ecology Supervisors: Prof WJ Browne, University of Bristol; Dr L Thomas, University of St Andrews 4.3. Prediction in the presence of temporal covariates Supervisors: Dr R King, University of St Andrews; Dr I Eckley, University of Lancaster 4.4. Application of mixture models in capture-recapture Supervisors: Professors BJT Morgan and MS Ridout, University of Kent 4.5. Spatially explicit capture-recapture methods Supervisor: Dr DL Borchers, University of St Andrews Theme 5. Stochastic models for population dynamics 5.1. Spatio-temporal zooplankton modelling: a synthesis of mechanistic and statistical modelling Supervisor: Dr SN Wood, University of Bath 5.2. Non-parametric modelling of temporal heterogeneity Supervisors: Dr ML Mackenzie and Dr R King, University of St Andrews 5.3. Efficient methods for fitting nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models of wildlife population dynamics Supervisors: Dr L Thomas and Prof ST Buckland, University of St Andrews; Dr PT Besbeas, University of Kent 5.4. Extensions of integrated population modelling Supervisors: Dr PT Besbeas and Prof BJT Morgan, University of Kent 5.5. Stochastic population projection modelling Supervisors: Prof S Townley and Dr DJ Hodgson, University of Exeter 5.6. Combined impacts of stochastic and transient dynamics in demographic time series Supervisors: Prof S Townley and Dr DJ Hodgson, University of Exeter 5.7. Statistical development of multi-state stopover models Supervisors: Dr R King, University of St Andrews; Dr RS McCrea, University of Kent Theme 6. Movement models to exploit large tracking databases 6.1. Differences and similarities in group positioning between wild and domestic animals Supervisors: Dr S Rands and Prof WJ Browne, University of Bristol 6.2. Modelling movement in complex heterogeneous environments Supervisors: Prof PG Blackwell, University of Sheffield; Dr J Matthiopoulos, University of St Andrews 6.3. Non-standard spatial models in ecology Supervisors: Prof PG Blackwell, University of Sheffield; Prof AW Bowman, University of Glasgow -- ____________________________________________________________________ Stephen T. Buckland CREEM, The Observatory, Buchanan Gdns, St Andrews KY16 9LZ, Scotland Tel. +44 (0)1334 461841Secretary+44 (0)1334 461842 Fax+44 (0)1334 [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Professor of Statisticshttp://www.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/ Director, NCSEhttp://www.ncse.org.uk/ Director, CREEM http://www.creem.st-and.ac.uk/ The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No SC013532 ____________________________________________________________________ You may leave the list at any time by sending the command SIGNOFF allstat to [log in to unmask], leaving the subject line blank.