Post Doctoral Position: Fishery Acoustics (Mrk. 35-16)

The Institute of Marine Research (IMR) has a four-year post doctoral research position available to work with sonars and echo sounders with the overall aim of improving the methods used in acoustic trawl surveys for pelagic fish stock. The Post.Doc will work together with other PhDs, Post.Docs, technicians and scientist forming the core team for the REDUS project. The REDUS project aims to reduce the uncertainty in stock assessment and advice for our most important fish stocks through developing and refining stock assessment modelling and management strategy evaluation. REDUS will provide a seamless and generic framework for uncertainty estimation and analysis that will allow for more optimal fisheries management (e.g. potential higher long-term quotas) and better prioritisation of fisheries monitoring and research. The core team will on a daily basis work closely together in a cross disiplinary manner. The successful applicant will together with other Post Docs have a joint responsibility for maintaining and contributing to the REDUS project social media. The post-doc research will be conducted within a multidisciplinary project at Institute of Marine Research that aims to quantify and reduce uncertainty in stock assessments (REDUS), where the position is organised under the Marine Ecosystem Acoustic research group, and the work location is in Bergen, Norway.

With a tremendous improvement in data processing capabilities, it is possible to store and analyse high quality sonar data as well as data from the next generation broadband echo sounders. In combination with new platforms such as sea-going drones, video systems in the trawl, floating devices and stationary ocean observatories these improvements provide many new opportunities in observing and measure density and behaviour of fish.

The post-doctoral fellow will work both practically at sea running in-situ experiments and theoretically with observation models to investigate the potential of combing methods. This work will be done in close cooperation with other ongoing projects at IMR.

The candidate should hold a PhD (or submitted the thesis by the closure date) in fisheries biology (with documented strong quantitative skills), mathematics, or physics. We are especially interested in candidates with documented expertise in fisheries acoustics, and it is advantageous that the candidate is used to work at sea.

The successful candidate should also have experience with at least one, but preferably all listed computer tools to process large amounts of data and in-depth programming including R, Matlab, and Java. It is essential that the candidate show ability to work in teams, and it is expected that the candidate will spend extended parts of the contract period abroadstay at one of the collaborating labs in the REDUS project.

Good oral and written communication skills in English are required. A working knowledge of the Norwegian language will be advantageous, but language training will be offered. The ability to work on multiple projects in a multi-disciplinary team setting is necessary.

Work place will be in Bergen at employment time. We offer a positive, challenging and creative work environment, the opportunity to work in a national institute with a high level of international contact, flexible working hours, and a wide range of welfare services. The Institute offers a governmentally regulated salary as a Post Doctoral researcher (salary code 1352) and an excellent pension scheme through the Norwegian Public Service Pension Funds, and other welfare benefits (See www.spk.no/no/English for more information).

For more information please contact the Head of the Marine Ecosystem Acoustic Research Group, Rolf Korneliussen, e-mail: rolf.korneliussen@imr.no, phone: +47 488 97 388, or senior scientist and project working package leader, Espen Johnsen, e-mail: espen.johnsen@imr.no, phone +47 90606394. You can also visit our web site at www.imr.no.

The Institute of Marine Research is an “Including Working Life Enterprise” concerned with diversity and therefore encourages all qualified candidates to apply. Candidates who have already been awarded a PhD or have submitted their PhD thesis are qualified to apply for this position. Please note that information about applicants may be made public even if an applicant has requested to be exempted from the list of applicants. Applicants will be notified about this in advance.

Please apply electronically using the link on this page, attaching a short letter of motivation, the names and contact details of at least two references, your CV with a list of publications, transcripts or other documentation to support your educational claims in statistics/quantitative sciences, and a selection of your most relevant publications.

Application deadline: August 1^st 2016