I am seeking to fill a doctoral student position with an individual having research interests in the population and community ecology of freshwater ponds; particularly the animals that live within and around them.  Research in my lab is largely focused on enhancing our understanding of three fundamental questions in ecology: (1) why are some ecological communities more diverse than others, (2) how does the biodiversity of a community affect ecological processes and the stability of ecological systems, and (3) what mechanisms control the population size of a species?  Example topics that students could pursue include 1) predator-prey and competitive interactions, 2) habitat selection and the process of community assembly, and 3) ecological causes and consequences of variation in biodiversity but I am open to the possibility of working with students on other topics in aquatic ecology as well.  Students will have the opportunity to address ecological questions via a multitude of quantitative approaches (including modeling, experimental and macroecological).  The student would be a member of the Department of Biology at East Carolina University and enrolled in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Biology, Biomedicine and Chemistry (https://idpbbc.ecu.edu/).  Ideally, the student will begin during the fall semester of 2025. Interested individuals should contact David Chalcraft (chalcraftd@ecu.edu).  Please include a copy of your Academic CV, information about your past academic performance (e.g., GPA), and a description of your interest in this position.  More information about the research conducted in the Chalcraft lab can be found at http://core.ecu.edu/chalcraftd/.

ECU’s Department of Biology () is home to more than 1,300 undergraduate majors (BS and BA in Biology and BS in Biochemistry) and instructs more than 17,000 students each academic year. Faculty in the department are committed to providing high-impact training in research to undergraduate, Masters (https://biology.ecu.edu/graduate-studies/) and Doctoral-level (https://idpbbc.ecu.edu/) students.

The Department of Biology is broad in its representation of different biological subdisciplines and emphasizes integrative approaches drawing from across the natural sciences. The Department of Biology and its research facilities (Microscopy, Genomics, and a vivarium) are primarily housed in the new Life Sciences and Biotechnology Building. ECU's West Research Campus (West Research Campus | Department of Biology | ECU; https://biology.ecu.edu/west-research-campus/)