Postdoctoral Associate

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The Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) of the University of Miami invites applicants for a Postdoctoral Associate position in Marine Biology and Fisheries.  This position is situated at the NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center Marine Mammal and Turtle Division located in Miami, FL and will collaborate with scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Universidad Veracruzana, and Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

We seek an experienced and productive researcher to join our group and participate in projects using passive acoustic monitoring to assess soundscapes, anthropogenic noise, and the distribution, occurrence, movements, and density of marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, and the Caribbean.  The SEFSC Marine Mammal Branch is conducting broad-scale studies of cetacean occurrence and density in the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, and the Caribbean using vessel-based towed arrays, sparse arrays of moored passive acoustic monitoring units, and acoustic-equipped gliders.  This research will improve our understanding of marine mammal ecology and evaluation of restoration projects to address the injury to marine mammal populations that occurred from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

The incumbent will develop methods to use these data to estimate marine mammal occurrence, density, abundance, trends, and noise impacts to support environmental planning and impact assessments by a variety of agencies.

Job duties include developing and implementing signal-processing tools for the detection, classification, localization, and density estimation of marine mammal acoustic signals; developing and implementing underwater acoustic propagation models to estimate marine mammal source levels, marine mammal detection ranges, and anthropogenic noise impacts on marine mammals, and evaluate effect size of modeled parameters and associated uncertainty; quantifying absolute noise levels in long-term acoustic recordings and evaluating spatiotemporal variation in noise sources and levels, including effects of noise-reduction technology implementation; project management including handling field work logistics and communicating with project team members and stakeholders, and writing reports; leading and participating in passive acoustic data collection surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, and Caribbean; and writing reports and presenting findings in scientific settings including in peer-reviewed publications.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in oceanography, underwater acoustics, bioacoustics, marine biology, engineering, applied mathematics, or related discipline. The position requires demonstrated experience developing and implementing automated detection, classification, and localization algorithms for bioacoustic signal analysis; developing and implementing underwater acoustic propagation models and simulations using appropriate models and oceanographic and sound source input data; working knowledge of ocean noise characterization and metrics to quantify ocean noise; demonstrated experience working with acoustic signal processing, including demonstrated ability to work with large, multi-year passive acoustic datasets; experience developing and leading research analyses; and demonstrated experience deploying and maintaining underwater acoustic hardware.  Necessary skills include proficiency in acoustic analytical techniques and software (e.g., Matlab, R, IDL, Triton, Ishmael, XBAT Raven, and PAMGUARD) and statistical and/or mathematical programming languages (e.g., R, Matlab).  Applicants with experience in marine mammal bioacoustics; machine learning; Bayesian statistics; statistical simulations of individual/group behavior; spatially explicit capture-recapture modeling; and/or habitat modeling are preferred.  Desire and capability to participate in multi-week deployments on a research vessel and work productively in a field/shipboard research environment is required. Spanish fluency is a plus.

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