The University of Turku is a world-class multidisciplinary research university which offers interesting challenges and a unique vantage point to national and international research and education.

Postdoctoral researcher position on senescence patterns and ageing markers in Asian elephants.

 A postdoctoral researcher position focusing on senescence patterns and ageing markers in Asian elephants will be available under the supervision of Dr Sophie Reichert, and in close collaboration with the large and multidisciplinary Myanmar Timber Elephant Project of Prof. Virpi Lummaa at the Department of Biology, University of Turku, Finland. The position is part of Dr Reichert’s Academy of Finland funded project to study the patterns of senescence and reproductive senescence and identify their underlying hormonal and ageing markers correlates, using a large longitudinal dataset on life-histories of a semi-captive population of Asian elephants in Myanmar. The Myanmar Timber Elephant Project group is highly cosmopolite and focuses on diverse domains of biology (evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, ecophysiology, genomics).
More information about the group’s project can be found at: http://elephant-project.science/. The project aims to examine different mechanisms of ageing, such as telomere dynamics and oxidative stress, combined with the study of fitness consequences of senescence to understand ageing mechanisms and how they interact with variation in lifelong health, reproductive history and endocrinological measures of stress and reproductive status in long-lived mammals.

The postdoctoral researcher will take advantage of exceptional lifelong demographic and health data recorded for the Myanmar timber elephants combined with data on a range of correlates of ageing, condition, stress levels and reproductive status to conduct a comprehensive study on the links between reproductive investment and proximate correlates of reproductive and survival senescence. The post-doctoral researcher will investigate changes in annual health status of individual elephants, and how these link to physiological measures of health, ageing markers, reproductive success across life and longevity. Asian elephants are endangered and both wild and captive populations are predicted to vanish from Myanmar unless the vital rates improve. Understanding health correlates of reproductive and mortality rates thus aids developing management and conservational policies.

The position allows for supervising Bachelor and Master students as well as for applying for own funding, and is thus a good opportunity for acquiring necessary experience for applying for faculty positions afterwards.

Applicants should have a PhD in fields such as evolutionary biology, ecology or ecophysiology. Strong statistical skills, including extensive knowledge in managing and analysing longitudinal datasets, as well as excellent written and verbal communication skills in English, evidenced by a good publication record in leading journals in the field, are a must. Some lab experience (telomere and oxidative stress analyses and/or hormonal analyses) would be a plus.

The position is for 22 months and should start at the latest the 1^st of November 2019. The successful candidate will have the possibility to apply to further Finnish / European funding to pursue the project past the present contract.

There will be a trial period of 6 months.

The salary will be determined in accordance with the Finnish university salary system for teaching and research personnel, and consists of two components: a work-specific salary component reflecting how demanding the position is, and a performance component reflecting an evaluation of the position-holder’s personal achievement.

The salary for post-doctoral researchers is in accordance with the University salary system for teaching and research personnel levels 4–6 where the work-specific salary component is between 2535,20 - 3423,25 euros per month. The component based on personal performance adds a minimum of 6 % and a maximum of 50 % to the base salary.

Applications should be accompanied by a max 2 page motivation letter, a curriculum vitae, a list of publications, a copy of diploma of the degrees, addresses of 3 potential academic referees and other documents that may affect to the selection need to be attached to the application.

Application deadline is on Friday 13.9.2019 (23:59). The applications must be submitted via the electronic application form of the University of Turku. A link to the application form is available above the announcement of this position at https://www.utu.fi/en/university/come-work-with-us/open-vacancies.

Please contact Dr Sophie Reichert for further information, reichert.sophie@gmail.com.