Research Associate/Post Doctoral - Economic & Social Modeling/Stock Assessment

Location:
Seattle, WA
Open Date:
Jan 29, 2019
Description:

The School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington seeks a postdoctoral Research Associate. This is a full-time, 12-month term position located at the University of Washington and NOAA’s Alaska Fishery Science Center in Seattle, initially funded for 12 months, with possible extension to another 12-months depending on funding and performance.

The research will be supervised by Dr. Christopher Anderson. The research conducted in Dr. Anderson’s lab focuses on understanding how the incentives presented by alternative approaches to fishery management affects harvester’s behavior, decisions which aggregate to produce fleetwide economic and social outcomes from fisheries. The position will be co-supervised by Dr. Stephen Kasperski at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

The 325MT Pacific cod quota is allocated among three major fleets: A Seattle-based industrial longline fishery targeting cod; a Seattle-based industrial trawl fishery that catches cod as bycatch when targeting flatfish; and an Alaska fixed gear fleet targeting Pacific cod with longline and pot gear on relatively smaller vessels; in addition, the quota is set to account for activity in Alaska state waters. Each of these fleets impacts a different component of the cod stock, by age and geography, and obtains different economic and social benefits from their catch of cod. The research associate will build an economically sophisticated management strategy evaluation model which characterizes two key changes as allocations of cod shift among the fleets at different stock and TAC levels. First, the model will represent changes in the level of economic and social benefits generated by each fleet, including representing the benefits created by alternative activities the fleet chooses under different cod allocation conditions. Second, the model will represent changes in the structure of the cod stock resulting from changes in relative fishing pressure by different fleets. The results will be reported in one or more manuscripts prepared for peer review and publication. While all UW faculty engage in research, teaching, and service, this postdoctoral Research Associate will be focused primarily on research.

Interested individuals can find more about the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences by visiting our website https://fish.uw.edu/ and Dr. Chris Anderson https://fish.uw.edu/faculty/chris-anderson/

The University of Washington (UW) is located in the greater Seattle metropolitan area, with a dynamic, multicultural community of 3.7 million people and a range of ecosystems from mountains to ocean. The UW serves a diverse population of 80,000 students, faculty and staff including 25% first-generation college students, over 25% Pell Grant student and faculty from over 70 countries. The UW is a recipient of a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award to increase the advancement of women in science, engineering, and math (see https://advance.washington.edu/).

Qualifications:

We seek a postdoctoral Research Associate to develop economically sophisticated management strategy evaluation models to assess the social and economic consequences of abundance-based allocation rules for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Pacific Cod.

• PhD or foreign equivalent in applied economics, statistics, mathematical ecology or related field.
• Expertise in economic and social modeling or stock assessment.
• One year experience with natural resource economics.
• Strong programming skills with a background in discrete choice modeling, social impacts, and stock assessement.
• Experience with complex datasets.

Application Instructions:

Candidates will need the following: (1) A letter of interest detailing your skills and experience. (2) A curriculum-vitae including publications. (3) The names and contact infromation for three references.