I am recruiting a postdoc with experience in molecular ecology to join our lab at Brown University. The postdoc will have the opportunity to lead collaborative research on the ecology and conservation of African savannas, and potentially other systems, with emphasis on DNA-based analyses of animal diets and microbiomes.

Potential projects are flexible and can be tailored to fit the experience, interests, and career goals of the postdoc. ​Candidates may get in touch via email to discuss potential projects and novel research ideas. 

The official advertisement is copied below. ​Applications should be submitted through Interfolio: http://apply.interfolio.com/41661.

Two graduate students are joining the Kartzinel Lab in Fall of 2017!

Bianca Brown is arriving from the Rand Lab, where she investigated how climate change may alter the microbiomes of barnacles and fruit flies. Bianca is developing cutting-edge research on how defaunation—the decline of African large herbivores in particular—can have cascading effects on the diets and gut microbiota of other herbivores in the community. With better understanding of these relationships, we expect to help improve wildlife conservation and reintroduction programs.

Patrick Freeman is arriving from Stanford, where he began researching the behavior and conservation of African elephants. Through his photographs and presentations, Patrick shares his experiences in ways that have brought his audiences to tears. By integrating a new repertoire of laboratory analyses with on-the-ground fieldwork, we aim to develop rigorous conservation strategies to protect for countless plants and animals in Kenya (especially the really big ones)!

Proud to contribute to a paper by Adam Pellegrini and coauthors that was just published in Ecology Letters: "Convergence of bark investment according to fire and climate structures ecosystem vulnerability to future change" (PDF).

Our work finds that some ecosystems contain tree species that are well adapted to the predicted changes in global fire regimes due to climate change, while others are composed of trees that may be particularly vulnerable. The paper was highlighted on Princeton's homepage and in Nature News!

It was an honor to join this year's OTS (Organization for Tropical Studies) Graduate Field Ecology course last week at La Selva. This is a premier program in tropical ecology, and the course revolves around a series of short (~3 day) research projects led by students and faculty. 

Days of rain made it difficult to do much research in the forest, but there was no shortage of plants and wildlife to learn about at the station. You should read the course's blog to learn more about what everyone was up to.

Carissa Ganong and Andrew Mehring made an outstanding team of lead faculty - it was a thrill to join them!

Thanks to a new, inspiring conservation organization — Biodiversity Initiative — for inviting our lab to join research and conservation efforts in the understudied tropical forests of Equatorial Guinea.
 
Highlights from a brief visit include:

1. A workshop with government officials (and other stakeholders) to discuss opportunities to better conserve wildlife and protected areas.
2. Hiking with a bushmeat hunter to learn about the first links in the wildlife trafficking chain—the way legal trapping of wildlife by local subsistence hunters can feed into international crime through the trade of endangered species, like pangolin. (Importantly, hunting was forbidden during my visit.)​
3. The magnificence of a primary Congo Rainforest on Equatorial Guinea's mainland.

Check out the new lab within the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society! The lab is a blank slate right now, but we’ll be moving in soon and we're already setting up opportunities for top-notch science.