Job: Koala Data Research Technician

If you live in South Australia, and in Adelaide especially, you would have had to be living under a rock not to have heard of the Great Koala Counts 1 and 2. So I’m not really writing this for those sotto pietra types. If you are a regular reader of CB.com, you’ll also know that I’ve been involved in helping analyze the data from GKC1, as well as improving the design of the GKC2.

Well, the data are in for GKC2 and we need help to analyze them. Just as a little reminder, the GKCs are designed to provide better data to estimate the distribution and density of koalas in South Australia (especially in the Mount Lofty Ranges). We’ve already written one scientific article from GKC1, but we now have a more expansive and quality-controlled dataset, so it’s now time to write the second.
We have some money put aside for a data technician, so you can view this post as a formal call for applications for a roughly 6- to 8-week (part-time, casual) contract (~ 25 hrs/wk) based at Flinders University to do the following tasks:

• clean up the various datasets (cross-checking, merging, location-checking, plotting)
• plot data spatially, including dedicated specialist transects and survey areas
• estimate probabilities of sighting, double-counting
• estimate density relationships
• begin construction of ecological niche models to estimate total abundance and habitat suitability

The ideal candidate will have the following experience and skills:

• GIS experience
• database management
• basic statistical analysis
• some coding skills (R programming language preferably)
• some scientific writing experience (thesis, papers, etc.)

Closing date: c.o.b. 13 March 2017

Your application should:

• include your résumé/Curriculum Vitae
• address the experience/skill criteria

Please e-mail applications to Corey Bradshaw. Along with Project Lead Investigator, Dr Philip Roetman, we will be assessing applications over the next few weeks.

Dr Philip Roetman explaining how to use the Great Koala Count 2 app