The School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan seeks candidates, preferably with postdoctoral experience, for a full-time, nine-month tenure track assistant professor position. The successful candidate will establish a strong research and teaching program in the arena of coupled human and natural systems, with an emphasis on how Africa's most valuable natural resources are being used, managed, monitored, and marketed.

Understanding the dynamic coupling of human and natural systems (including related topics of sustainability science and ecosystem services) has emerged as a major focus of global research priorities and international efforts to address challenges such as climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, sustainable use of natural resource, and political instability linked to competition over valuable resources. Such a broadly defined perspective links the non-human world with human political economy, technology, and cultural production and consumption. Coupled social and natural systems analysis draws on specific experimental, statistical, spatial, ethnographic, and modeling approaches to problem solving; UM has been extremely successful at encouraging scholars to think and work across the boundaries of departments, schools, and units in such directions.

The position is part of a four-faculty cross-campus cluster hire focused on changing relationships between Asia and Africa with respect to Environment, Information, Sustainability, and Development (EISD). We seek someone who can work productively within the cluster to provide insights into resource management with respect to contemporary issues surrounding environmental policy, global change, and development, and who will be open to having his/her own research informed by recent work in such fields as environmental history, spatial/information science and development studies.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment is a research-based interdisciplinary professional school focused on the development of knowledge and new policies, designs and management strategies for the protection and stewardship of the Earth's resources. Our common mission is to contribute new science, visionary leadership and trained professionals to help societies move in a more sustainable direction. Set within a major research university, the School provides a model of interdisciplinary and applied research and a focal point of research and teaching on sustainability. The faculty of the School is diverse, with natural scientists, social scientists and designers working together in an integrative setting. Within the School, nine fields of study provide focus at the master's degree level, including curricula in ecological, design, policy, behavior, and justice issues. Our current student body includes 350 M.S. students and over 50 doctoral students. We also participate actively in a cross-campus undergraduate Program in the Environment, along with other cross-campus programs such as dual degrees with the Schools of Business, Law and Public Health.

Responsibilities:

Research: Successful candidates are expected to establish strong programs of scholarship that contribute to expanding knowledge in the field and that contribute to the interdisciplinary problem-focused mission of the School.

Teaching: Three courses per year, including one at the undergraduate level. In any given year, we anticipate that one or two of these could be team-taught with other faculty from the EISD cluster. SNRE faculty balance contributions to core or required courses with choices of their own course topics and titles.

Guiding and mentoring graduate students: The new faculty member will participate in the academic counseling of graduate students and supervise doctoral and master's students including those involved in integrative, group-based master's projects.

Service and collaboration: The new faculty member will contribute to the stewardship of SNRE, the University and relevant professions. This service includes development of cooperative ties with appropriate University-wide programs and departments to develop University-wide excellence in environment, information, development and sustainability. Partner units include the School of Information, the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, and the Department of History.

Qualifications:

Applicants should have completed a Ph.D. in environmental studies, geography, economics, ecology, or biological/ biomedical or similar fields; research must relate disciplinary knowledge and training to broader processes of environmental and social change - in the context of coupled human and natural systems - that are not captured by disciplinary boundaries. Highly competitive candidates will have a strong record of publications and sponsored research support, demonstrated evidence of substantial field research and research collaborations in Africa (and also possibly Asia), capacity to contribute to interdisciplinary research efforts, and willingness to build bridges across divisions between practitioner and researcher worlds.

Application materials should include a letter of application, statements of research and teaching interests and experience, a curriculum vitae, and copies of three letters of reference.

Materials should be emailed to: Search Chair, EISD Faculty Search, School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041 at eisdsearch@umich.edu. Review of applications will begin after October 20, 2010 and will continue until suitable candidates are found. The position is expected to be filled by September 1, 2011.

Additional information about the School can be found at www.snre.umich.edu.