NRRT Position Announcement – Final

GEOG Human Ecology of Water

The Department of Geography, in conjunction with the Virginia Water Resources Research Center (VWRRC) at Virginia Tech is seeking applicants for a tenure-track position in the area of the Human Ecology of Water at the assistant professor level as part of a cluster hire of seven new faculty positions within four departments and two colleges at Virginia Tech. This position focuses on interdisciplinary issues related to water with potential research foci in the social, political, and/or economic concerns and dynamics associated with water use, management, regulation, conservation, and justice – as well as human/environment feedbacks inherent in these processes at community and regional scales. We seek a geographer who brings a social science perspective to water resources; specifically, a scholar with demonstrated interest in human perception, decision-making and/or behavior as well as the interconnections between social and biophysical systems. Of particular interest are candidates that would develop research programs that target multi-scale water resource issues (local, regional, global) such as climate variability and change, land use/land management, population change and water quality/supply and public health. The teaching requirement is three courses per year, one of which will be a new introductory water course for Virginia Tech. This position will be affiliated with the VWRRC and will require some assistance with administration of the VWRRC to help achieve its mission to provide training, research, and information regarding water resources. Evidence of an established research track in water and social science must be provided. We seek an energetic faculty member committed to excellent teaching and dedicated to research with the skills needed to secure external funding. An ability to develop a strong, externally funded research program and publication record is essential for success at Virginia Tech. In both teaching and research, we seek applicants dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration. Although specific research specialties are open, preference will be given to candidates who will strengthen research collaboration within the water cluster, the department and the college. Full information concerning the department and university can be found at: http://www.geography.vt.edu and http://www.vt.edu. Further information on the cluster concept and the faculty specializations recruited for the water cluster can be found at: http://(fill this in when up).

Full Description:

Final Assistant Professor Natural Resource Social Science and GIS 020413

College of Natural Resources (CNR)

North Carolina State University (NCSU)

Full Description here:

Geospatial Analytics Related to the Human Health Impacts of Climate Change

(a) work with iUTAH faculty and students to design and implement an appropriate suite of
surveys of households, businesses, and farming operations in year one, including lead
oversight of survey logistics, data entry, and dataset construction;

(b) incorporate analysis of water decision-making in dissertation chapters and publications
in years 2 and 3; and

(c) collaborate to develop social science models of water use, particularly integrated models
that link human water decisions with changes in the built environment and environmental
conditions.

Candidates should have (or expect to complete by August 2013) a masters degree in a
relevant social science discipline. The home department for this student will either be in
Environment & Society (ENVS) or Sociology (SSW&A), though students will be expected to
work in an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional research team that includes researchers from
USU, the University of Utah, and several other Utah universities. Full doctoral research
fellowship support for a qualified student on this project is initially guaranteed for 3 years at a
rate of $20,000 per year (plus a full tuition award), with expectations and opportunities to pursue
supplemental funding from internal and external sources in future years.
Prospective students should contact Dr. Zhao Ma (zhao.ma@usu.edu) or Dr. Douglas
Jackson-Smith (doug.jackson-smith@usu.edu) for more information: please include a current
resume and statement of research interests with your inquiry. Application deadline is February
1, 2013.

Organizations manage a majority of water in the WRMA and regularly make decisions related to infrastructure change, water user needs, and changing land use and institutional environments. Meso-scale organizations such as municipalities and irrigation companies are key actors within the WRMA, and their decisions and behaviors structure water availability of users within their jurisdictions, and are constrained by the broader social, cultural, and legal institutional context. This project seeks to conduct systematic research on the dynamics of decision making within these organizations, and the impact of their decisions on sustainability outcomes.

The successful applicant will be expected to make scientific contributions in understanding water management organization decision-making processes related to interactions among urban form, environmental change, water infrastructure, and water use decision-making. The student will help organize secondary data and oversee collection of primary data from organization leaders surrounding infrastructure decision-making processes and how these decisions relate to shifts in populations and local effects of climate change. The student will also work closely with iUTAH modeling teams to support future modeling of integrated water systems.

Candidates should have (or expect to complete by August 2013) a masters degree in a relevant social science discipline. The home department for this student will either be in Sociology (SSW&A) or Environment & Society (ENVS), though students will be expected to work in an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional research team that includes researchers from USU, the University of Utah, and several other Utah universities. Full doctoral research fellowship support for a qualified student on this project is initially guaranteed for 2 years at a rate of $20,000 per year (plus a full tuition award), with expectations and opportunities to pursue supplemental funding from internal and external sources in future years. Prospective students should contact Dr. Douglas Jackson-Smith (doug.jackson-smith@usu.edu) or Dr. Joanna Endter-Wada (joanna.endter-wada@usu.edu) for more information: please include a current resume and statement of research interests with your inquiry. Application deadline is February 1, 2013.

Why Utah? The Wasatch Front of Northern Utah offers a stunning landscape for work (and play). The Wasatch/Cache National Forest provides unlimited outdoor recreation year-round. Housing costs are lower than the national average, and there are diverse cultural opportunities. Northern Utah is a short trip from the most scenic National Parks in the USA, including Zion, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Grand Teton, Great Basin, and Yellowstone.

Scenic rural communities across the nation and around the world havebeen transformed as they have shifted away from extractive industries suchas agriculture, mining, and forestry and toward recreation-baseddevelopment relying on tourism, vacation homes, and retirees. Thesecommunities have built new economies and identities based on localnatural resources and are highly dependent on the natural environment.With these changes have come new questions: Do retirees and seasonal residents fit into their newsurroundings? Do longtime and new residents share the same values and visions for the future? Dodiverse community members disagree about how to manage their forest and water resources?

Condos in the Woods explores how these issues are reshaping community structure,employment, and inhabitants’ attitudes toward their environment in the Northwoods. Looking at trendsfrom the 1970s to the present, this work moves from the national scale to the Pine Barrens region innorthwestern Wisconsin and examines the approaches of residents to the management of their naturalresources. At the heart of this story, the authors find that despite the diverse makeup of suchcommunities, residents share many common goals and values and display more successful integrationthan previously expected

.“Makes a major contribution linking and expanding beyond an array of research on the question: Whatdoes the growing dominance of seasonal home ownership and use mean for the communities ofnorthern Wisconsin?”—Susan I. Stewart, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station

Rebecca L. Schewe is assistant professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. Donald R.Field is professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Deborah J.Frosch is an environmental specialist at Alliant Energy. Gregory Clendenning is senior projectmanager at NMR Group, Inc. Dana Jensen is a private consultant specializing in long-rangecommunity and land-use planning and regional economic positioning.