Graduate Fellowships are for 1-2 years and include a stipend of approximately $21,000/year plus health insurance and a tuition award. To be considered for a fellowship, students should contact UA faculty member(s) to discuss potential research, apply for graduate school at the appropriate UA institution, and apply for the fellowship with this application. Also click here for the project summary noted in this application. The deadline to apply to the graduate school and for these fellowships is February 1, 2008. A copy of all materials should be sent to the student's faculty sponsor. Students who cannot make this deadline should contact one of the faculty mentors listed below for advice on how to proceed. See also the biology grad fellowship ad here for more information.

Postdoctoral Fellowships are for two years and include a salary of $42,000/year with excellent benefits and $12,000 a year in research funds. Application instructions will be posted here later.

Faculty involved in the Biology research focus areas of Landscape Genetics and Symbiosis:

Faculty in this focus area are using a variety of techniques to address past, present and future changes in species distributions of northern taxa, ranging from ecology, physiology, molecular population genetics, and geographical information systems (GIS). Priority will be given to applicants who demonstrate potential for research that bridges multiple faculty.

Lilian Alessa: My research involves coupled natural human systems. Specifically, we are most interested in the effects of human activities on landscapes and freshwater. The dynamics of coupled social ecological systems may help determine how communities and societies succeed or fail. We incorporate various approaches to understanding these processes particularly those of complex systems and agent based modeling.

Matthew L. Carlson: Plant conservation biology and evolutionary ecology - mating system and floral trait evolution, plant reproductive ecology, and ecological and evolutionary links with rarity. Current research also includes geographic patterns of non-native plant introductions, non-native plant invasiveness, plant and soil microbe succession, and plant-herbivore interactions.

Christine Hunter: My research focuses on the response of populations to environmental change and anthropogenic influences, and on the ecological and management consequences of these responses. I am particularly interested in the dynamics of structured populations.

Steffi Ickert-Bond: Phylogenetic relationships, biogeography, and gene evolution in three diverse groups of vascular plants: 1) the temperately distributed herbaceous legume genus Oxytropis; 2) the Asian-North American disjunct family Altingiaceae (the "sweet gums"), and 3) the arid gymnosperm genus Ephedra (Gnetales). My current research concentrates on three major areas: 1) comparative biogeography of arctic and alpine species in the genus Oxytropis, assessing how climatic conditions in the past provide a major framework for understanding current environmental changes and diversification in Oxytropis (including past migrations and Pleistocene refugia); 2) molecular systematics, phylogeny, biogeography and morphological evolution of Altingiaceae, and Ephedra; and 3) classical revisionary work and floristic work in Altingiaceae, New World Ephedra and Oxytropis.

Mary Beth Leigh: Environmental microbiology. My work integrates microbiology, ecology, molecular genetics and biochemistry to understand microbial processes relevant to environmental quality and ecosystem function. Research interests include bioremediation of pollutants, decomposition of lignocellulose in boreal forest soils and mercury transformations in the arctic.

Christa Mulder: I am a plant ecologist who works at the interface between population, community, and ecosystem ecology. Current research projects include impacts of seabirds and invasive rats on island vegetation processes and ecosystem function, and the impacts of biotic interactions (e.g. herbivory, pollination, disease) on invasion rates by non-native plants in boreal forest.

Link Olson: Molecular and morphological systematics, biogeography, phylogeography, geographic variation and natural history of mammals. I favor a synthetic approach to understanding patterns and mechanisms of mammalian diversification, combining lab work, field work, and specimen-based museum research.

Matt Olson: My research focuses on understanding forces generating and maintaining genetic diversity in natural systems. We use a variety of methods to understand intraspecific diversity including common gardens, experimental field studies, genetic crossing studies, and DNA marker and sequence analyses. Projects in my lab tend to focus on plant breeding system evolution and local adaptation to northern climates in forest trees.

Sanjay Pyare: My background is geospatial analysis in the fields of biogeography, landscape ecology, evolution, and natural resource management. I am particularly interested in using GIS to analyze and predict distribution patterns of species in response to environmental change, as well as bridging GIS modeling with traditional genetic techniques to understand migration and gene flow and reconstruct phylogeographic patterns.

Roger W. Ruess: My research interests focus broadly on controls over production dynamics and biogeochemical cycling in boreal forests. I am particularly interested in the population biology and physiological ecology of alder. This includes physiological and population responses to disease, how mutualist partner choice (mycorrhizal and Frankia) influences plant N:P balance, and the effects of alder on landscape evolution.

Derek S. Sikes: I am a systematic entomologist specializing on beetle (Order Coleoptera) diversity and evolution. I work in both sub-disciplines of Systematics: alpha-Taxonomy and Phylogenetics. I employ morphological data for both descriptive (identification) purposes and to test hypotheses of relationships. DNA sequence data are used primarily for phylogenetic inference but also to test hypotheses of species demarcations (a primary goal of alpha-taxonomy). As curator of Insects at the University of Alaska Museum I pursue research involving documentation of Alaska's poorly known entomofauna using traditional (field collection, morphological identification) and modern (GIS, phylogeography, DNA-based identification) methods.

David Tallmon: The research projects in my lab center on the intersection of population genomics and demography. Frequently, my graduate and post-doctoral students use genomics data to infer demographic parameters. In addition, we combine genomic data with experiments and field studies to gain insights into recent evolutionary patterns and processes on a wide range of taxa.

Lee Taylor: Structuring of microbial diversity and the evolutionary ecology of plant-microbe interactions. Current foci include partner choice of Frankia and ectomycorrhizal symbionts by alder, evolution of specificity in orchid mycorrhizae, and the structure and function of fungal communities in cold soils.

Jeff Welker: Arctic ecosystem biogeochemical cycling and climate changes, physiological ecology of arctic plants including plant-microbe interactions, and isotope geochemistry of precipitation from local to continental scales. Research approaches include observational and long-term experimental studies in northern Alaska, the southern boreal forest and the High Arctic in NW Greenland.

Diana Wolf: I am interested in the processes and the consequences of evolution. I approach this though studying molecular evolution and ecological genetics. Specific research topics include the evolutionary history of Beringian flora, the breakdown of self-incompatibility in polyploids, the population genetics of self-incompatibility genes, and the role of natural selection in local adaptation. We are currently investigating local adaptation for variation in cold tolerance and leaf hair (trichome) density. Study organisms include arctic and boreal poppies, and Arabidopsis relatives.

Alaska EPSCoR is funded by the National Science Foundation Award # 0701898 and the State of Alaska.