School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin

The Discipline of Geography at Trinity College Dublin is held in the School of Natural Sciences. Research performed in Geography is highly diverse, with topics spanning the breadth of the field including socioeconomics, physical landscape processes, urban infrastructure, and GIS. The inherent interdisciplinary nature of geography has made it a natural home for targeting the challenges of our modern society, and its students and faculty engage with critical issues in climate policy, housing, sustainability, and social justice in their daily work. In the School of Natural Sciences, Geography is joined by fellow disciplines of Geology, Botany, and Zoology to provide a comprehensive research and educational environment for those studying the natural world.

Trinity College Dublin provides a liberal environment where independence of thought is highly valued, and all are encouraged to achieve their potential. Trinity promote a diverse, interdisciplinary, inclusive environment which nurtures ground-breaking research, innovation, and creativity through engaging with issues of global significance. Located in a beautiful campus in the heart of Dublin’s city centre, Trinity is Ireland’s highest ranked university. It is home to 20,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students across all the major disciplines in the arts and humanities, and in business, law, engineering, science, and health sciences. Trinity’s tradition of independent intellectual inquiry has produced some of the world’s finest, most original minds including the writers Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett (Nobel laureate), the scientists William Rowan Hamilton and Ernest Walton (Nobel laureate), the political thinker Edmund Burke, and the former President of Ireland and UNHCR Mary Robinson. This tradition finds expression today in a campus culture of scholarship, innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and dedication to societal reform.

Homepage: https://naturalscience.tcd.ie/

We are currently seeking applicants for a postdoctoral researcher to join the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)-funded DRYPEAT project beginning in January 2025. This researcher will join the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland, in the Geography discipline. The position is paid at Level 2A Point 1 (SFI salary scaling) and is funded for 2 years with an annual salary point raise and a potential extension for a third year. The application deadline for this position is 31 October 2024.

Background: The DRYPEAT project

Blanket bogs are a type of waterlogged peatland that carpet ≈11% of the Irish landscape in mountainous regions and the Atlantic coast lowlands. Blanket bog carbon storage and biodiversity are critical components of a sustainable Ireland, but a warming and drying climate may push the bogs beyond a tipping point into ecological collapse. The exact environmental conditions that lead to this threshold are unknown, but we could constrain uncertainty about blanket bog resilience by knowing the maximum aridity levels that blanket bogs have survived in the past. In project DRYPEAT, we aim to develop a new evapotranspiration (ET) proxy through deuterium-excess (dxs), a second-order stable isotopic parameter, and bog plant cellulose. The project will initiate a precipitation isotope monitoring network across Ireland in coordination with sustained monitoring of blanket bog precipitation, surface waters, and vegetation in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. Using multiple peat cores, the project will culminate in a new bog-based ET and aridity reconstruction for the Wicklow Mountains covering the past 4000+ years.

The three main objectives of DRYPEAT are summarized as:

1. Install a precipitation isotope monitoring network (ÉireNIP) to quantify the spatiotemporal relationships between precipitation dxs and geographic/meteorological variables.
2. Determine a transfer function from bog plant cellulose isotopes to bog ET through regular dxs monitoring of blanket bog water and plants in the Wicklow Mountains.
3. Apply the new transfer function to cellulose extracted from 2+ peat cores to reconstruct 4000+ year ET histories of the Wicklow Mountain blanket bogs and compare to predicted future ET conditions.

Postdoctoral researcher role in DRYPEAT

The postdoctoral researcher will be an integral component of DRYPEAT and work closely with the other members of the project team: Pete D. Akers (PI) and a PhD student. The researcher will lead field collection and monitoring of precipitation, surface water, bog plants, and peat cores in a mountainous peatland terrain. The researcher will also have significant time devoted to the processing of plant and peat core samples in a laboratory setting to extract and isotopically analyse cellulose in collaboration with the PhD student in order to develop the dxs ET transfer function. The researcher will be funded to visit at least one other European laboratory to observe their cellulose isotope methodology and analytical system, and funding is also available to support academic conference travel.

Qualifications

A PhD in botany, geography, geoscience, environmental science, or an affiliated area is required.

The successful candidate will have:

• Experience collecting and analysing qualitative and quantitative data in both a field and laboratory setting.
• Skills in plant taxonomy and field identification of plant species as well as knowledge of plant physiology and ecology.
• Knowledge of the broad parameters of climatology, geochemistry, and environmental science that pertain to hydrology and ecology.
• Experience conducting an independent empirical research project as evidenced through their PhD dissertation/thesis.
• A working knowledge of statistical programming (e.g., R, Python) and GIS.
• Excellent written and oral communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work independently and collectively as part of the DRYPEAT project team.
• Legal ability to drive in Ireland or the capability to gain this ability quickly after arriving in Ireland.

Additionally, it is highly desirable if a candidate can exhibit any of the following:

• Prior experience with stable isotope analysis and environmental tracing.
• Prior experience with botanical surveying, field collection, and/or experimentation.
• Prior experience with climate or weather modelling.
• Prior experience working in challenging field conditions.

Application Procedure

Applicants should submit in one document:

• A cover letter setting out your motivation for applying for the role and how your skills meet the requirements set out in this document.
• A full curriculum vitae.
• The names and contact details of 2 referees (including email addresses and affiliation to the applicant).

Contact information

The application and any inquiries regarding the position should be sent by 31 Oct 2024 to:
Dr. Pete D. Akers, Asst. Professor of Physical Geography, Trinity College Dublin
Email: pete.akers@tcd.ie