Dear Ecologgers, see below for an exciting fully funded PhD at the University of Sheffield in the UK…
All the best, Johan ---------------------------------- Delivering Food Security Through Small-scale Farming - lessons from Brazil's Atlantic Forest Supervisors: Lead Supervisor: Dr Karl Evans, Dept Animal and Plant Sciences Co-supervisor: Dr Chasca Twyman, Dept Geography Project Sunshine Centre Doctoral Training 4 year fully funded PhD Studentship We are seeking a highly motivated postgraduate student with a passion to work at the interface of the natural and social sciences, and a background in at least one of these disciplines. This exciting PhD position is fully funded and open to applicants of any nationality. The project is part of the University of Sheffield's flagship Project Sunshine programme www.sheffield.ac.uk/shine and will investigate the effectiveness of Brazil's food security and poverty alleviation policies at addressing both socio-economic and environmental concerns. The student will use an interdisciplinary approach combining interview data from individual farms with remote sensing, and agricultural and national census data to ask three inter-related questions regarding how policies have influenced: 1) agricultural indicators of food security such as yields, agricultural expansion, and investment 2) socio-economic indicators of food security such as malnutrition, self reported intensity and duration of hunger, future farming intentions 3) deforestation that determines the provision of ecosystem services that are crucial for long-term food security. The student will undertake extensive quantitative and qualitative fieldwork in the Atlantic Forest region of the state of Minas Gerais. This is an important agricultural centre and biodiversity hotspot. Excellent language skills in Portuguese or Spanish are essential. The ideal applicant will also have a Masters degree, understanding of food security and ecology, and experience of most of the following techniques: social science research methods, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, and use of GIS and remote sensing. The studentship is fully funded and open to EU and non-EU citizens alike and will be supervised jointly by staff within the Departments of Animal and Plant Sciences, and Geography, University of Sheffield. The studentship has collaborative links with the Sheffield Institute of International Development. For further information please contact Dr Karl Evans (APS) ([email protected]) or Dr Chasca Twyman (Geography) ([email protected]), with an expression of interest and CV. The intention is to interview in February, and the studentship will start in October 2014. Closing date: Applications will be accepted for this studentship until 22 January 2014 ---------------- Dr Johan Oldekop Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) The University of Sheffield ICOSS 219 Portobello Sheffield, S1 4DP UK T: +44 114 222 6067 M: +44 (0) 7453 290899 W: www.madasascientist.com
