We are recruiting a PhD student/research assistant at the University of Minnesota to work on a 3 year funded project in "Participatory Planning for Sustainable Landscape Restoration in the Western Himalaya", funded by a grant from the University of Minnesota's Sustainable Geocommunities research initiative (https://research.umn.edu/sustainable-geocommunities), and to be conducted in collaboration with colleagues at IIT-Delhi, the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, and a group of local NGOs and community organizations in Himachal Pradesh, India.
The PhD student will be enrolled in the Natural Resource Science & Management PhD program at Minnesota (https://nrsm.umn.edu/), and will be co-supervised by Dr. Forrest Fleischman and Dr. Adriana Uscanga. NRSM is one of the top ranked PhD programs in natural resource management in the US, and draws on a wide interdisciplinary faculty in ecology, natural resource management, conservation, and the social and policy sciences at the University of Minnesota. The PhD student will be employed to work on the research project, as well as to work some semesters as a teaching assistant, and will be expected to develop their own grant proposals to support their research.
This is a summary of the proposed research project (details of the application process are below):
Over the last decade, ecosystem restoration has emerged as a leading natural climate solution, with the potential to produce co-benefits for biodiversity and people’s livelihoods. Yet recent research has shown that these benefits may not be realized if the local people who use and manage those landscapes are not involved in planning for restoration. We propose to build on ongoing research on trees, people, and restoration in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh to work with local communities and local government officials to identify community-based strategies for improved futures through restoring degraded landscapes. We will hold participatory workshops in villages that draw on participatory rural appraisal, strategic foresight, and participatory GIS techniques, informed by advanced remote sensing and AI. We will work with leaders in these communities to develop long-term management plans, in collaboration with the government forest department that draw on the resulting plans, and will lead to healthier and more productive long-term landscapes. Scholarly outputs of this research will include publications examining how to effectively merge advanced remote sensing techniques with participatory planning, analyses of the differences between restoration outcomes with and without these techniques, and proposals to large-scale funders to scale up successful solutions.
We are seeking a PhD student who has strong written and oral communication skills and will play the role of a key node in this project, responsible for collecting data, collaborating with project partners and local communities, and developing and trialing participatory restoration planning techniques.
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field
- Strong written and oral communication skills in English and Hindi
- Respect for the ability of local communities to address pressing environmental and social problems through locally led initiatives (that may or may not be externally supported)
- Significant experience living in and collaborating with local communities in rural Himachal Pradesh or similar rural areas in the global south in locally-led initiatives to improve human well-being and/or ecosystem integrity.
- Significant experience with ecological restoration, participatory planning, strategic foresight, participatory GIS, remote sensing, app development, and/or spatial applications of AI (note that not *all* of these are required, but experience with at least one of these is required).
- Masters degree in a closely related field
- Demonstrated ability to lead publishable research papers
- Advanced training or experience in one or more of the following areas (we do not expect anyone to have training in all of these areas):
- Participatory GIS
- Strategic foresight
- Participatory rural appraisal and/or other community-led initiatives
- Collaboration across diverse stakeholder groups
- Forest Restoration (particularly in the western Himalayas)
- Development of remote sensing and AI based mobile applications
Because we found out about this funding late in the application cycle relative to University of Minnesota application processes, we are asking for a quick response to this form - please submit your response by January 29, 2025.
- A letter of no more than 2 pages that describes your vision for this project, as well as the ways that you meet the required and desired qualifications described above. Note that if you do not meet all the required qualifications, we will not accept your application. Here’s some useful advice about writing cover letters for this kind of position.
- Please indicate whether you can meet by February 5, 2025, the English language requirements for admission to the University of Minnesota (note that for nearly all students from South Asian countries, this means submitting test scores, and this date means that you would have to have already taken the relevant test - please read the requirements carefully). If you have passed the requirements already, please provide proof. If you have not, please indicate so (passing the requirements will be necessary to be admitted to the University of Minnesota, but we will consider applicants who have not yet met the requirement, we just need to know if you have already met the requirement).
- A CV detailing your accomplishments, no more than 3 pages. Here is some useful advice about writing an academic CV.
- A list of 3 professional references (including contact information) who are prepared to write you a letter of recommendation that can be submitted to the University by February 5, 2025. Letters of reference should be 1-2 pages long and should describe the reference’s acquaintance with you as well as the reference’s assessment of your ability to meet the desired and preferred qualifications for this project. In our experience, reference letters from South Asian countries are sometimes short and impersonal relative to the norm in the US, so please be sure that your references understand that reviewers in the US will expect a detailed accounting of the work you have done with them and what their assessment of your potential is.
- A professional writing sample. It should be something written entirely or primarily by you, and can be a class paper, a professional report, an opinion publication, or an academic publication. Choose something that gives us a sense of your past work as well as your ability to communicate in writing - it doesn’t have to be something specifically related to this project or to research. If you are not the only author, please include a statement describing your contribution to the paper following the CRediT guidelines.
Questions about the application process can be directed to Forrest Fleischman (ffleisch@umn.edu). Applications will only be accepted through the form linked above, they will not be accepted via email.
