Opportunities

If you might be interested in joining the team…

Immediately below are some of the researchers currently in the team, their research interests, and how they may be able to help you. Then come sections on general masters, PhD, and postdoctoral opportunities.

Frank Pennekamp (Note that Frank leads his own research group.) I am interested in biotic responses to environmental change from the individual to the ecosystem level. I primarily address my questions with experiments, field studies and statistical/mathematical modeling. While most of my work uses microbial model systems (protists), I am really fond of insects and my goal is to make them the focus of a new line of field-based research. I really enjoy to work at the interface of data and theory and would be happy to hear from people interested in internships, masters studies, phd studies, and postdoctoral research. Email Frank

Romana Limberger – In my research I am investigating ecological and evolutionary responses of communities to environmental change, using experiments with aquatic protists as model systems. I would be happy to hear from people interested in internships, masters studies, phd studies, and postdoctoral research. Email Romana

Rainer Krug – I work in the field of scientific programming using R, data and metadata management and workflows, and developing pipelines to automate the pre-processing and analysis of different types of measured data. If you are interested in these topics and would like to do some work with me, as an internship, or part of master, phd, postdoctoral or any other studies, please contact me and we can see if it is feasible. Email Rainer

Francesco Polazzo – I am interested in how species, communities, and ecosystems respond to environmental change. Particularly, I am studying how species diversity and response diversity (the variety of responses shown by species to environmental conditions) determine ecological stability. I am also very much interested in the role of food web structure in determining community stability in face of environmental change. To investigate these processes, I use experimental approaches grounded in ecological theory. I would be happy to hear from people interested in internships, masters studies, phd studies. Email Francesco Francesco on Twitter

Shyamolina Ghosh – My research attempts to apply quantitative tools, and sometimes to introduce new quantitative approaches for ecologists - to develop and test theories in population, community, and macroecology. My goal of the research is to understand the ongoing global changes and how they could affect responses or interactions from the individual, population, a community levels across space and time. I combine data-driven quantitative, theoretical, and empirical approaches to understand the fundamental processes, mechanisms, and consequences of changes in various ecological levels across terrestrial and aquatic realms. I strongly support open data, code, and a reproducible approach in science. I would be happy to collaborate with enthusiastic people from quantitative or experimental backgrounds. Email Shyamolina

Martina Jelic – In my PhD research, I use response surfaces to investigate the effects of multiple stressors (such as warming or ocean acidification) on consumer-resource systems and their predictability. I’m interested in understanding when and why multiple stressors have non-additive effects across levels of ecological organization using protist microcosm experiments. I would be happy to hear from people interested in research internships or master studies. Email Martina

Uriah Daugaard – In the context of my PhD studies, the focus of my research currently lies on ecological forecasting and associated questions such as: (1) What makes certain ecological systems and measures more predictable than others? (2) Are there general relations between species or ecosystem characteristics and how well these can be predicted? (3) How do such relations scale with environmental change, for instance with warming? To tackle these questions I mainly work with laboratory based microbial aquatic ecosystems (natural communities consisting in ciliates, bacteria, algae, flagellates and rotifer species) but I plan to also use real-world data from Swiss lakes. I’m also interested in doing side-projects, such as functional response experiments. Get in touch if you’re interested in talking about this research or in doing an internship or M.Sc. Email Uriah / Uriah on Twitter

Masters

The group participates in the following graduate programmes:

PhDs

Please contact a team member listed above if you have an idea for a Ph.D. that you think fits with the research aims of the team (and please consider this advice about making an effective enquiry). If you’re interested in studying for a PhD in Ecology (or related subjects) we have a very strong ecology program, joint with ETH. You can apply to this program, and may then be invited to visit Zurich to meet Professors and groups, and for a short interview. You can also apply directly to Professors. For more information about the ecology program, take a look at the web page of the ecology phd program. For more information about PhDs in other areas of biology, please take a look at the web pages of the Life Sciences Zurich Graduate School.

Postdocs

We are always very happy to consider motivated and enthusiastic postdoctoral researchers whose research interests are a good fit with the group’s. Please contact a team member listed above (and please consider this advice about making an effective enquiry)