Join CIE – Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 2023 – Applications open 4 July 2022

The Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are intended to build research and innovation capability and excellence and create impact in strategic priority research strengths at Deakin University.

The Fellowships support and develop early career researchers identified as potential rising stars, aiming to enhance the capacity and capability in key research areas and build the next generation of high achieving and internationally competitive researchers.

Applications open – Monday 4 July 2022

Applications close – 11.55pm on Wednesday 31 August 2022 (AEST)

Outcomes advised – End of November 2022

For more details on how to apply visit the Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowships webpage.

The CIE’s integrative approach brings a great breadth of expertise together to solve complex fundamental and applied problems in ecology, evolution and sustainability. Our researchers include behavioural ecologists, physiologists, wildlife and evolutionary biologists, geneticists, environmental scientists, and experts in economics, sustainability, bioinformatics and biodiversity conservation, working across terrestrial, marine and freshwater environments.

See below for a sample of CIE’s great research:

Please help CIE and circulate amongst your networks and encourage suitable people to apply.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN – The 11th Australasian Ornithological Conference 2022

The 11th Australasian Ornithological Conference (AOC) 8 – 10 February 2022 to be held in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand is pleased to announce that submissions are now open!

They are looking for contributions from all areas of ornithology and welcome submissions from community organisations, academic researchers and students, conservation specialists and more.

CLICK HERE to submit your abstract and to find out more.

Deadline to submit is 3 September 2021.

Best CIE HDR Research Awards – Centre for Integrative Ecology (CIE) Annual Conference 2020

Dear CIE HDR students,

An important part of the annual CIE conference is to seek out and acknowledge your fantastic research efforts. So If you have a recent research output, please send it through for consideration in one of our Best CIE HDR Research Award categories.

In 2020, we have four research award categories:

1. Best reviewed research paper (a manuscript that has undergone part, or all of the external peer review process).

2. Best unreviewed research paper (a pre-submitted, or submitted manuscript, lacking any input from peer-review feedback)

Award Rules:

  • Entries are open to all CIE HDR students;
  • Published papers must have been published after October 2019;
  • Papers should reflect research undertaken as part of your current CIE HDR candidature;
  • Papers will be judged, scored, and ranked by a panel of CIE academics;
  • Please email papers (stating category) or submissions to Tim Jessop (t.Jessop@deakin.edu.au) before September 20th to be in the running;
  • Winners will be contacted by email at the end of September.

3. Best CIE HDR award for science outreach:

Here we are looking for great examples of how you are translating and communicating your science for the benefit of the broader community and ideally having an impact beyond the ivory towers of academia! I am leaving this vague in its interpretation to allow for the broadest consideration of your research outreach efforts (e.g. an account of how your science helped Nuns in Mexico sustainably harvest endangered salamanders to make cough syrup, or it could be a blog or some other form of popular science communication ).

If you would like to enter, please send me a brief email, using no more than 200 words to describe your science outreach efforts.

  • Again please email submissions to Tim Jessop (t.Jessop@deakin.edu.au) before September 20th.
  • The winner will be contacted by email at the end of September.

If these do not appeal, and because many of you will be presenting at the upcoming CIE conference then you automatically qualify for the:

4. Best Presentation Awards:

The CIE will also be giving out awards the for best female and best male HDR candidate presentations at the conference.

The winner of each category:

Will be awarded a voucher and certificate.

We look forward to receiving many entries and learning about your great research!

Professor John Endler, one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London

In a first for Deakin University, Professor John Endler has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the world’s oldest and arguably most prestigious science ­academy.

For more information:

PhD position: PhD candidate within pollution and infection susceptibility in migrating shorebirds

We are looking for a PhD candidate keen on studying the combined impact of pollution and infection susceptibility on migrating shorebirds.

The specific hypothesis of the project are that:

1) susceptibility to infections (e.g. avian influenza) will increase in a host due to high exposure to environmental pollution;

2) pollutants modulate the immune system in a specific manner that facilitates infection prevalence and/or disease severity;

3) microRNA profiles can be used as a predictive tool to assess disease outbreaks and severity.

The position is based at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and financed by the Norwegian Research Council and has a special responsibility within the project COAST-IMPACT (August 2020 – July 2023).

The overall aim of COAST-IMPACT is to study the impact of pollution in the coastal wetlands of East Asia by assessing the biodiversity of littoral macroinvertebrates, and the resulting impact of food availability, pollution and infection in migrating shorebirds along the East Asian Australian Flyway using these wetlands.

The field component of this PhD project will be linked to the ongoing large-scale study of migrating shorebirds in Australia (Melbourne in Victoria, and Broome in Western Australia).

Secondly, the lab component of the project will elucidate the mechanisms driving pollutant-induced immunomodulation that relate to increased infection susceptibility in the host (targeting microRNAs and inflammation markers).

Lastly, the obtained data will be used to develop diagnostic biomarkers to assess infection and exposure that will allow to improve disease outbreak predictions for the future.

For further information and to apply for this position CLICK HERE (PhD position) or contact Prof Marcel Klaassen.