Post Doctoral Research Associate - Chronic Wasting Disease

Title: Post Doctoral Research Associate - Conservation Scientist

Executive Area: Academic Affairs

College/School/MBU: College of Natural Sciences

Department: Environmental Conservation

Work Location: Amherst

Schedule: Full Time

Work Arrangement: Onsite

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal, transmissible prion disease of deer, elk, and moose that continues to expand across North America. Massachusetts has not yet detected CWD, and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife (Mass Wildlife) recently led the Commonwealth in taking proactive regulations (i.e., sun setting captive cervid facilities, expanding carcass-importation restrictions, banning deer-based scent lures, and expanding surveillance), which were developed through a structured decision‑making process.

However, Massachusetts would benefit further from a rehearsed, multi‑agency reactive response procedure for the moment a positive is detected, as well as a clearer understanding of the behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes of the people (e.g., hunters, cervid farmers, Mass Wildlife staff) whose decisions shape that risk.

We are seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst to lead this work. The position blends human dimensions and quantitative wildlife disease research: analyzing existing statewide stakeholder surveys to understand knowledge, attitudes, and regulation‑relevant behaviors; helping design and facilitate an interagency tabletop exercise that stress‑tests the state's reactive response; and co‑designing the communication materials and decision tools that come out of it.

Depending on the candidate's interests and skills, there are also opportunities to contribute to other quantitative work on wildlife disease arrival and spread (e.g., evaluating which management actions perform best under alternative modes of arrival).

We are looking for someone who is interested in working at the interface between research and management. We highly encourage people from historically underrepresented groups or non‑traditional backgrounds to apply. The successful candidate will be part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and will work with a team that includes federal scientists, state agency biologists and outreach staff, and a second postdoctoral researcher at a partner university working on complementary modeling.

This work is a collaboration among the MA Coop Unit, the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center, Mass Wildlife, and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vermont who is working on complementary modeling of CWD dynamics in the Northeast.

Analyze three existing statewide CWD stakeholder surveys to quantify knowledge, attitudes, and regulation‑relevant behaviors across audiences, and to identify the hunter subpopulations at highest risk of importing CWD into Massachusetts.

Help design and co‑facilitate an in‑person, multi‑agency tabletop exercise (1.5 day workshop) that simulates CWD detection scenarios and tests the state's reactive response.

Translate the results of the tabletop exercise into a revised reactive‑response section of the state CWD response plan and a positive‑detection decision tree that links preventative, surveillance, and reactive actions; ideally, this would also result in a management protocol for other state wildlife agencies on how to structure these tabletop exercises.

Co‑design pre‑positioned communication materials with the state agency's outreach and education staff, using the communication channel and trust data from the existing surveys.

The postdoctoral researcher is also expected to lead and co‑author peer‑reviewed manuscripts, write research…