Assistant Professor 

Cohort Hire: Empowering Biodiversity for People and Planet 

Focus: Global Biodiversity and Ecoinformatics 

Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University 

Position: Assistant Professor, Tenure-track. 

Location: Ithaca, NY, USA. The academic home for this position is the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (DNRE) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, housed on the Ithaca campus of Cornell University.   

The Department of Natural Resources and the Environment welcomes applications for a 9-month, full-time tenure-track position in global biodiversity and ecoinformatics at the assistant professor level. We seek to hire a highly collaborative scientist who will aggregate and analyze large scale biodiversity datasets that inform practices and policies aimed at addressing our planetary biodiversity crisis.  

Bending the curve on biodiversity loss and assessing the trends that impact ecosystem health and sustainability requires innovative approaches to the collection and integration of data from different organismal and environmental sources. This ecoinformatics position centers biodiversity research at continental to global scales with approaches yielding insights about threat status trends and/or ecological processes related to biodiversity trends. Within this goal, any type of informative data from DNA to citizen science to remote sensing is applicable. We seek candidates capable of building a framework to interrogate ecological processes generating, maintaining, or sustaining biodiversity and how these trends are linked to environmental change. Compelling candidates will build a computationally sophisticated research program that integrates 'big data' (broadly defined) on organismal diversity and the environment to address fundamental biological questions and applied conservation challenges.  

We seek a colleague who can integrate large-scale biodiversity data from multiple sources, with applications that inform conservation and/or conservation policy. Candidates with research programs potentially integrating Cornell’s extensive biodiversity collections (museum specimen, citizen science, acoustic and image data) with ongoing field collected data, filling global data gaps, or leveraging long-term temporal data are particularly desirable. Analyses including policy relevant social, cultural or economic factors are desirable but not required. Preferred candidates will be partnering with resource managers, NGOs and/or communities to identify the most informative metrics for assessing the consequences of biodiversity decline and potential recovery. 

Outstanding research scholarship is expected, as is excellence in and commitment to teaching, translation of knowledge, advising and inclusive mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students. We seek colleagues with a record demonstrating success and/or promise across all these areas, and who will be supported by and contribute to a vibrant culture of inclusive excellence at Cornell. As such, candidates are expected to engage in service and leadership activities within the department, the college and university, and relevant professional societies. We welcome candidates who understand the barriers facing marginalized identities who are underrepresented in academia, the classroom, and in higher education careers (as evidenced by life experiences and educational background). We encourage applications from candidates who have experience in building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment through teaching, mentoring, research, outreach, life experiences, and/or service. 

Our new colleague will join a cohort of five faculty hires in Empowering Biodiversity for People and Planet. Research in the Empowering Biodiversity cohort will be guided by knowledge of ecological and evolutionary relationships and the documentation of processes that drive organismal success, decline and recovery. This cohort includes recent or concurrent hires in Population Biology and the Genomic Architecture of Species Success (Computational Biology), Plant Biodiversity and Adaptation (School of Integrative Plant Science), Insect Biodiversity and Conservation (Entomology), and the Economics of Biodiversity (Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management).  

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Roadmap to 2050 is Centering Environmental Justice to Achieve Climate and Sustainability Goals through the Pursuit of Just Technological Futures via cohort hires within ​​​​​five Transdisciplinary Moonshots​. These offer opportunities for the College to collaborate on future-focused, cross-disciplinary scientific breakthroughs and to align research, education, and extension programs for greater impact and stronger connectivity. The Moonshot areas build upon core strengths in CALS, spanning the agricultural, environmental, life, and social sciences, with the goal of recruiting 27 faculty into the College over three years. 

Position Responsibilities:  

This position has a balanced effort between research (50%) and teaching (50%). 

Research (50%) – The successful candidate will develop and lead an externally funded and internationally recognized research program that addresses basic and applied questions about biodiversity processes or trends by applying advanced data science and computational methods to biodiversity data at large geographic scales. 

The successful candidate is expected to maintain a well-funded research program. Excellence in and commitment to development of multidisciplinary team-based research and training programs is essential. 

Teaching (50%) – The successful candidate will contribute undergraduate teaching in support of the cross-college Environment & Sustainability major (e.g., introductory data science) and develop a graduate course related to biodiversity informatics. Mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students is expected. 

Location: The successful candidate will be located at Cornell University’s Ithaca Campus.   

Department Affiliation: The successful candidate will join the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment as a tenure-track faculty member within the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. A CALS mentoring program to support personal and professional development for new faculty will provide advocacy, guidance and assistance. 

Qualifications: A Ph.D. in fields related to quantitative biodiversity science, potentially including computational biology, environmental science, or ecology/evolution, with demonstrated expertise in biodiversity ecoinformatics is required. We will prioritize applicants with some grounding in organismal, ecological or evolutionary sciences.  

CALS hiring range for this position is: 

Assistant Professor: $90,000 - $130,000