An opportunity exists at the University of Dayton (UD) for graduate-level training related to questions at the interface of community and ecosystem ecology utilizing insect communities. The student will be based at UD (although, there may be a substantial field component in grasslands in Texas in the summers) and will work in the laboratory of Dr. Chelse Prather.

I am seeking a motivated student who is eager to perform the arduous tasks associated with ecological field research and chemical analyses in the lab, the careful work of experimentation, and who has an eagerness to learn and implement complex statistical analyses.  Potential students must be excited to work with insects and have substantial fieldwork experience. Students must be able to work well in potentially inclement conditions (e.g., hot summers with many biting insects), and work well with others in the field. Other desirable qualities include: familiarity with sampling grassland vegetation and insects, insect identification, rearing insects, laboratory feeding trials with insects, and laboratory chemical analyses.  I would be open to applications from potential Masters or PhD level students.

I am currently working on two major projects in my lab: 1) an NSF-funded large-scale manipulation to determine the role of micronutrients in structuring herbivore communities in grasslands, and 2) a USDA-funded mesocosm experiment (in collaboration with Dr. Angela Laws and others) to determine if herbivore diversity affects grassland functioning. These projects are both located in Texas, and could provide an excellent framework for an intellectually curious student to develop independent, interesting complementary projects.

The student will be initially supported by a teaching assistantship through the Department of Biology at UD.  The assistantship is associated with a stipend of ~$20,000/year; however, a portion of this comes in the form of a University summer fellowship which is awarded through a competitive process. The assistantship also comes with 100% tuition remission. Support is guaranteed for the life of the project pending satisfactory performance.

UD is the largest private University in the state of Ohio, and is consistently award winning for both academic programs and scholarshiphttp://www.udayton.edu/awards_and_rankings.php.  Enrollment is ~11,000 with approximately 3,000 graduate students.

Interested individuals are encouraged to start communication with me (cprather1@udayton.edu) about your interests in the lab, and include a current CV.