A postdoctoral researcher position is available with Prof Hal Caswell, in the Theoretical Ecology Research Group, which is part of the Department of Theoretical and Computational Ecology within the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The Theoretical Ecology Group currently comprises 2 professors, one assistant professor, 1 post-doc, and 4 PhD students. It has active research programs in structured population modelling, resource-consumer interactions, epidemiology, demography, and evolutionary and eco-evolutionary theory.

This postdoctoral position is part of the research program The Formal Demography of Kinship and Family (FORMKIN), which is funded by a European Research Council Advanced Grant to Prof Hal Caswell. The overall goal of FORMKIN is to develop and apply a matrix analytic model for kinship demography, which will compute the kinship network implied by schedules of mortality and fertility. It will develop this theory at the levels of the individual, the cohort, and the population. The models will be applied to comparisons of countries, regions, socioeconomic groups, and historical periods.

This postdoctoral project will focus on applications of the models to human demographic data, from as wide an array of sources as possible (including, but not limited to, databases, surveys, censuses, register data, and models), to explore both familiar questions, and develop new ones, in family demography. You will be responsible for identifying sources of data, developing substantive research questions, and carrying out analyses.

As postdoctoral researcher you:

• hold a PhD in demography or a related field, with a strong quantitative and analytical background and familiarity with matrix population models;
• have experience with sources of human demographic data on mortality, fertility, and families;
• are interested in questions related to kinship and family structures, how they are determined, and how they change over time;
• are fluent in English, with evidence of good scientific writing skills;
• are able to program in Matlab or R;
• like to work in a multidisciplinary research team and have good communication skills.

The position start is flexible, but preferably soon. The full-time appointment will be on a temporary basis for initially one year, with an extension to a maximum period of two years after a positive evaluation. The full-time gross monthly salary will range from €2,640 to € 4166, depending on experience. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable. The annual salary will be increased by 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% end-of-year bonus.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics

IBED is one of the eight research institutes within the Faculty of Science. Its goal is a better understanding of the dynamics of ecosystems at all relevant levels, from genes to climate change, using a truly multidisciplinary approach.

http://ibed.uva.nl/