An RA position will be available starting in the Fall of 2012 in the department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, to conduct research on the extraction of evolutionary inferences from multilocus (or genome-wide) sequence data, with a focus on the evolution of wild plants. The student will have the opportunity to help develop and validate tools for using very large molecular data sets to address questions about species boundaries, population boundaries and mechanisms that cause different genes to have conflicting histories. This position is part of an interdisciplinary project involving plant biologists, statisticians and computer scientists. Applicants should have a strong background in evolutionary biology, a liking for data analysis, statistics and bioinformatics and an interest in deploying cutting-edge sequencing technologies to solve interesting biological questions. Molecular labwork and perhaps fieldwork could be integrated into the student's dissertation research, if that was of interest.
Applicants should contact
Cecile Ane
(ane at stat.wisc.edu) and/or
David Baum
(dbaum at wisc.edu).
Please provide a letter summarizing your background and research experience,
why this opportunity is exciting for you, and the names of two references.