Collective Action & Property Rights News: EMPLOYMENT: Research positions at the Maranhao State University, Brazil

Monday, October 18, 2010

EMPLOYMENT: Research positions at the Maranhao State University, Brazil

The Master´s Course in Agroecology of Maranhao State University is searching for researchers in the following fields:

Microbiology / molecular biology
Weed science
Socioeconomics / anthropology

Other research fields are also possible, provided they integrate well into the general setting and are not redundant to existing capacities.

Principal requirements for the candidates are scientific productivity, and a spirit of adaptability to local conditions and challenges, whereas skills in Portuguese language and didactics can also be acquired in-situ. Different research grant modalities are or will be available.

Main activities to be developed by the candidate will be:

Execution of innovative agroecological research, involving elaboration of funding proposals, coordination of research teams composed of students, colleagues, technicians and farmers, and publication of results;
Supervision of students of the graduate level (`Scientific Initiation´, mainly students from agronomy but biology and others also possible) and of Master thesis projects, there is the perspective of supervision of PhD-projects in a near future. Also some lecturing in master’s and graduate courses.

The Master´s Course in Agroecology (São Luis, Maranhão State, Brazil) is dedicated to the development of ecologically, agronomically and socioeconomically sound management solutions for smallholder farming systems. They are situated in the eastern periphery of Amazonia (transition zone to dryer Northeast provinces and cerrado), its rural zone is the poorhouse of Brazil and parts have suffered severe environmental degradation. The institute currently consists of 13 researchers, comprising soil scientists (SOM, nutrient cycling, soil physics), phytopathologists (integrated pest&disease management), a botanist, an entomologist (specialized in sessile arthropods), a microbiologist (mycorrhiza and rizóbia) a.o. They have altogether 35 M.Sc.- students and another ~20 graduate students (where we also do some teaching). They have labs with basic/routine equipment (CNS autoanalyser, ICP-plasma, UV-spectrometer, basic microbiology etc.), also a ±functional genetics lab. Cooperation with other institutions (most notably Embrapa Agrobiologia, Rio de Janeiro) allows for more sophisticated analyses. Research is currently bundled in the following three general lines: