Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Community Conservation Global Synthesis University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan are partnering to invite applications for an outstanding Postdoctoral Research Fellow with deep expertise in quantitative analyses of socio-ecological systems. Areas of expertise could include geospatial analysis, integration and causal analysis of environmental and social data, and/or evidence syntheses and meta-analyses.

The Research Fellow will lead analyses as part of a global working group synthesizing evidence on the biodiversity, climate, and social outcomes of community-based conservation (CBC) in land and coastal systems. The evidence synthesis will advance understanding of the status, impacts and drivers, and prospects of CBC in a changing world. The working group is composed leading interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners based in the US (Universities of Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami, Cornell, and Stanford, Rights and Resources Initiative, and WWF), Brazil (Federal University of Pará);

the UK (University of Manchester);
Madagascar (University of Antananarivo);
India (Indian School of Business); and Indonesia (AMAN – Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago).

The postdoctoral fellow will assume the following key responsibilities:

• Lead a systematic review of relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature, including a conceptual synthesis of the term “community-based conservation” and its variants used in marine and terrestrial ecosystems to develop a typology and conceptual framework.
• Compile, harmonize, and analyze diverse social, environmental and climate change mitigation datasets linked to CBC across multiple spatial and temporal resolutions.
• Support horizon scanning or similar Delphi-style efforts to collect data on practitioner, policymaker, and researcher views on the future prospects for CBC.
• Co-author and support high-impact, interdisciplinary research publications in leading sustainability and environmental science journals.
• Contribute to collaborative grant writing, proposal development, and data-sharing infrastructure to sustain and expand the project’s activities.
• Engage with global partners and practitioners to ensure findings are accessible and actionable for both research and policy audiences.