The Kitzes Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (http://kitzeslab.org) is seeking applications for a fully-funded Ph.D. student with interests in bioacoustics, quantitative ecology, avian ecology, machine learning, and/or data science. The ideal candidate will contribute to our long-term goal of developing and applying automated acoustic survey and machine learning methods to study the ecology and conservation of birds, frogs, and other sound-producing taxa.

Along with incoming Postdoctoral Scholars and Research Assistants, the candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to many ongoing projects, including a newly funded NSF Global Center on AI and Biodiversity Change and ongoing work supported by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Potential general research areas include:

• Understanding the factors driving population change in avian species of conservation concern in restored forests across Pennsylvania
• Surveying rare and endangered frog species at field sites across Pennsylvania, California, Panama, and Brazil to assess population recovery after disease outbreaks
• Surveying and modeling populations of secretive marsh birds in the United States and Canada
• Spatially localizing individual birds and mammals in heterogeneous landscapes using arrays of time-synchronized acoustic recorders
• Developing new machine learning/artificial intelligence methods for identifying sounds of interest in field recordings

The successful candidate will join a large research group currently consisting of one postdoc, five graduate students, three research assistants, and numerous undergraduate students. Our lab strives to create a supportive and healthy workplace culture, emphasizing collaborative work, active mentorship, effective communication, and professional development for all of our lab members.

The incoming student will receive five years of guaranteed support, including at least four years of dedicated research funding. Our department provides graduate students with a competitive stipend (currently ~$36,000 per year), tuition waiver, and health benefits regardless of citizenship.

Although departmental applications are due in December 2023, interested applicants should send an email directly to Justin Kitzes ([email protected]) that includes a few paragraphs describing the type of work that you are hoping to do for your dissertation and why you are interested in our lab in particular, as well as your CV. Interested candidates are also invited to contact other lab members for information about the open positions and lab environment.

The Kitzes Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (http://kitzeslab.org) is seeking applications for up to two Research Assistants with experience in bioacoustics, quantitative ecology, avian ecology, machine learning, and/or data science. The ideal candidate will contribute to our long-term goal of developing and applying automated acoustic survey and machine learning methods to study the ecology and conservation of birds, frogs, and other sound-producing taxa.

Along with incoming Postdoctoral Scholars and a graduate student, the candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to many ongoing projects, including a newly funded NSF Global Center on AI and Biodiversity Change and ongoing work supported by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Potential general research areas include:

• Understanding the factors driving population change in avian species of conservation concern in restored forests across Pennsylvania
• Surveying rare and endangered frog species at field sites across Pennsylvania, California, Panama, and Brazil to assess population recovery after disease outbreaks
• Surveying and modeling populations of secretive marsh birds in the United States and Canada
• Spatially localizing individual birds and mammals in heterogeneous landscapes using arrays of time-synchronized acoustic recorders
• Developing new machine learning/artificial intelligence methods for identifying sounds of interest in field recordings

Our Research Assistant positions are particularly suitable for candidates with bachelor’s or master’s degrees seeking additional experience before considering applying to Ph.D. programs. We are particularly interested in either (a) candidates with quantitative backgrounds (math, statistics, or programming) who are interested in transitioning into conservation and ecology, or (b) candidates with strong field work skills looking to improve their quantitative abilities. These positions include responsibility for leading lab research projects, writing scientific manuscripts, and presenting at scientific conferences.

The successful candidate will join a large research group currently consisting of one postdoc, five graduate students, three research assistants, and numerous undergraduate students. Our lab strives to create a supportive and healthy workplace culture, emphasizing collaborative work, active mentorship, effective communication, and professional development for all of our lab members.

These positions are open immediately. The initial appointment will be for one year with extensions available pending a positive first year review. Our prior research assistants have generally stayed in the position for 2-3 years before moving on to the next stage in their careers, often a Ph.D. program. Salary is expected to be in the range of $35-40,000, approximately comparable to the graduate student stipend at our university. Staff at Pitt receive benefits including health insurance, access to libraries and recreational facilities on campus, free access to public transit, and paid vacation days.

Interested applicants should send an email to [email protected] that includes (1) a cover letter describing your interest in this position and prior experience and skills, (2) a CV, […]

The Kitzes Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (http://kitzeslab.org) is seeking applications for up to two Postdoctoral Scholars with expertise in bioacoustics, quantitative ecology, avian ecology, machine learning, and/or data science. The ideal candidate will contribute to our long-term goal of developing and applying automated acoustic survey and machine learning methods to study the ecology and conservation of birds, frogs, and other sound-producing taxa.

Along with incoming Research Assistants and a graduate student, the candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to many ongoing projects, including a newly funded NSF Global Center on AI and Biodiversity Change and ongoing work supported by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Potential general research areas include:

• Understanding the factors driving population change in avian species of conservation concern in restored forests across Pennsylvania
• Surveying rare and endangered frog species at field sites across Pennsylvania, California, Panama, and Brazil to assess population recovery after disease outbreaks
• Surveying and modeling populations of secretive marsh birds in the United States and Canada
• Spatially localizing individual birds and mammals in heterogeneous landscapes using arrays of time-synchronized acoustic recorders
• Developing new machine learning/artificial intelligence methods for identifying sounds of interest in field recordings

The postdoc will lead the writing and publication of scientific manuscripts, present findings at scientific conferences, support the writing of research grants, and mentor graduate and undergraduate students.

Minimum qualifications include a Ph.D. in biology, ecology, data science, or a related field. Expertise in machine learning, statistical modeling, and/or avian field surveys is desirable.

The successful candidate will join a large research group currently consisting of one postdoc, five graduate students, three Research Assistants, and numerous undergraduate students. Our lab strives to create a supportive and healthy workplace culture, emphasizing collaborative work, active mentorship, effective communication, and professional development for all of our lab members.

The start date for the position is flexible, and applicants may join the lab any time through summer 2024. The initial appointment will be for one year, with funding available for a second and third year pending positive reviews. Postdoctoral Associates at Pitt receive benefits including health insurance, access to libraries and recreational facilities on campus, free access to public transit, and paid vacation days. In addition to salary (currently ~$56,000 per year), funding is available for field assistants, equipment, conference travel, and publication fees to support the postdoc’s research program.

Interested applicants should send an email to [email protected] that includes (1) a cover letter describing your interest in this position, prior research, and plans for future research, (2) your CV, (3) the names of three references, and (4) a writing sample. Interested candidates are also invited to contact other lab members for information about the open […]

The Kitzes Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (http://kitzeslab.org) is seeking a Ph.D. student to join our lab in the Summer or Fall of 2022 (applications accepted in Fall 2021). Research in our lab broadly seeks to understand how human alteration of natural habitat impacts species abundance and diversity at large spatial scales. Our ongoing projects mainly use bioacoustic methods to investigate the conservation and spatial ecology of temperate bird communities.

The research focus for this student will be somewhat flexible, but will likely focus in part on field surveys of Pennsylvania breeding birds conducted using automated acoustic recorders, with recordings analyzed using our lab’s machine learning classifiers and advanced statistical models. Students with a background in field work involving birds, acoustic surveys, statistics, and/or machine learning models are particularly encouraged to apply.

Our department provides competitive financial support for graduate students that includes a stipend, full tuition remission, health insurance, and free access to public transportation (http://www.biology.pitt.edu/graduate/financial-support). We anticipate that the incoming student will receive a five year support package that includes up to 4 years of research funding.

Although applications are not due until December, interested applicants should contact Dr. Kitzes during the fall term. Please send an email ([email protected]) that includes a few paragraphs describing the type of work that you are hoping to do for your dissertation and why you are interested in our lab in particular, as well as your CV.

Please see our lab website (http://kitzeslab.org) and the website of the Department of Biological Sciences (http://www.biology.pitt.edu/) for more information about our lab, the department, other faculty and students, the university, and the city of Pittsburgh.

Our lab has purchased nearly 3,000 AudioMoth acoustic recorders in the past few years. Overall, we have found their performance for measuring species occupancy in the field to be roughly on par with both a human listener and other commercial recorders that we have used. For those who are interested in a more detailed look at the performance of these recorders, Sam Lapp has recently written up some results from his quantitative AudioMoth performance testing, including on and off-axis frequency response, the effects of different housing options, and the effects of attaching the recorders to trees.

This week, Tessa Rhinehart presented a talk at the ABA Virtual Bird Club about our lab’s work on automated bird monitoring. Her talk Eavesdropping on Birds and her associated article in Birding Magazine both give an excellent introduction to our research.

Justin was quoted in a recent article in the Washington Post focused on the use of bioacoustic techniques for surveying bird populations. In addition to the quotes below, the article highlights our ongoing work on individual bird localization.

“I’m well aware that you can talk to any scientist from any time period, and they’ll say we’re right on the cusp of something extraordinary,’’ said Justin Kitzes, an assistant professor and a computational ecologist with the University of Pittsburgh. “But there’s a convergence of a lot of things right now that in the next 20 years are going to be very important.’’

“These data will be the museum specimens of our century,’’ Kitzes said. “These are things we should be archiving. Future generations will return to them, with better methods, better equipment, new questions we can’t even think of today. They are going to be very thankful to us for preserving this.’’

Our lab is very happy to announce that we were recently awarded a $643,272 grant under the new NSF Infrastructure Innovation in Biological Research (IIBR) solicitation! The project will focus on developing an inexpensive, open source hardware and software platform for performing spatial localization of temperate bird songs. The idea is that, by spatially separating songs, we will be able to spatially segregate individual birds in order to measure species abundance, in addition to presence and absence, using acoustic recorders. We will also be starting a new collaborative educational project, in concert with Dr. Sam Donovan and the QUBES project, to develop and share a lab curriculum that teaches machine learning to undergraduate students. The award abstract provides more details on the project.

Our department is once again seeking a PEEP fellow for this upcoming year – this is a competitive postdoctoral fellowship open to candidates whose research overlaps with at least two of the ecology and evolution faculty at the university. If you are interested in applying for this opportunity, please feel free to contact Justin in advance to discuss potential ideas. The full announcement is below:

The Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for a 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ecology and Evolution, broadly defined (e.g., disease ecology, microbiome, behavioral ecology, species interactions, phylogenomics, population genetics, community and eco-evo dynamics). The goal of the EE Postdoctoral Fellowship is to broaden expertise and to stimulate synergistic interactions between faculty interested in the area of Ecology and Evolution.The successful candidate will be expected to conduct original independent research that bridges the interests of two or more faculty members in the Ecology and Evolution sections of Biological Sciences and to lead a graduate seminar in their area of expertise each year.

Qualified candidates are required to submit a single, coherent 2-year research proposal to be completed under the guidance of two or more members of the ecology and evolution faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences (https://www.biology.pitt.edu/research/ecology). The position does not include research funds so the extent of contributions from the faculty sponsors should be addressed in the proposal. We strongly encourage candidates to contact appropriate faculty sponsors before applying. Preference will be given to candidates with novel ideas, demonstrated research ability, and strong communication skills. Along with the research proposal, applications must include a CV, a short description of research accomplishments and a description of how your research, teaching or service demonstrates a commitment to diversity and inclusion. The applicant must arrange for two recommendation letters from non-UPitt faculty, and letters from the UPitt faculty sponsors to be emailed to the address below. The expected salary will be $48,000 per year with benefits. Application deadline is April 1, with position start date June-August 2019 (specific date negotiable).
Application materials should be emailed to: Dr. Tia-Lynn Ashman at: [email protected]. The subject line should read “EE Post-doctoral application”.

We are happy to welcome Trieste Devlin as our new Field Assistant. Trieste has a B.S. in Robotics Engineering from UC Santa Cruz, and will be working on a variety of projects related to our acoustic recorder hardware development as well as to our field deployments.