Assistant Professor-Department of Biology; Zoologist

WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

The Department of Biology at Wilfrid Laurier University (Laurier) invites applications for a Tenure Track Faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor, subject to budgetary approval. We are seeking an Integrative Organismal Zoologist using a whole organism approach to investigate physiological, developmental and evolutionary aspects of organism-environment interactions tobegin July 1, 2026. Expertise and research focus in non-vertebrate metazoans or protozoans is strongly preferred.

The Waterloo campus will be the primary location for this position; however, teaching responsibilities may include instruction at the Brantford and Milton campuses via in-person or virtual delivery.

Anticipated Salary Range: $90,000 to $140,000. Actual salary to be commensurate with experience.

The Department of Biology is a dynamic unit within the Faculty of Science, with leading researchers in many fields and a commitment to building collaborative interdisciplinary research partnerships to address complex and diverse issues. This position in the Department of Biology falls under several of the University’s strategic research themes, including environmental sustainability, health and well-being, and governance and policy. Within the environmental sustainability research theme, the examination of whole organisms within ecosystems is highlighted as an area that can advance our understanding of environmental change, conservation, and sustainable resource management, which is consistent with the broader mission of Laurier to promote sustainability now and into the future, with research that engages multiple practitioners, stakeholders and communities to produce results with real-world impact.

We are seeking an Assistant Professor using an integrative approach
to directly address current and emerging questions around how organisms survive and persist, with applications in environmental
sustainability. The successful candidate will study the structure, function, ecology, and/or evolution of whole organisms, connecting development, physiology and/or behaviour to broader evolutionary and environmental processes.

We seek outstanding candidates who leverage deep natural history knowledge to conduct conceptually driven research in ecology, evolution and/or behaviour. The successful candidate will have a track record of studying the organism as a focal unit of inquiry using an integrative and/or multidisciplinary approach. Possible research topics include (but are not limited to): how organisms resist or recover from stress or environmental perturbation;

mechanisms of plasticity; the role of behaviour in fostering resilience; whether the impacts of organismal resilience scale across levels of biological organization; the role species interactions play in resilience; how resilience mechanisms enable organisms, populations, and communities to respond adaptively to human-induced changes; and how resilience mechanisms evolve and how they impact evolution. The ideal candidate will develop an active research program that bridges molecules to ecosystems, using any mixture of advanced experimental, computational, and/or analytical approaches and technological tools (e.g., artificial intelligence, remote sensing, environmental informatics, predictive modeling, and/or environmental genomics).

With this hiring, the Department of Biology will build capacity in the area of physiological and evolutionary biology and further strengthen our strategic research themes.

The successful candidate is expected to contribute service to the University and academic community, and to scholarly and/or professional activities.

About Laurier Biology

The Department of Biology offers undergraduate degrees in Biology and Environmental Science, as well as a MSc program in Integrative Biology and a PhD program in Biological and Chemical Sciences (in conjunction with the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry).

The department values equity, diversity and inclusion, and is involved in a number of efforts and initiatives to promote these values, including participation in the federal program…