Research Scientist

This position will support applied research and development of population metrics from Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera data to inform management of deer, turkeys, and other Wisconsin wildlife species.

The position will be responsible for producing and improving upon the annual decision support products from Snapshot data. The incumbent of this position will work on quantitative model development (e.g., hierarchical models, GAMMs) and communicating research findings through writing peer-reviewed manuscripts and creating dynamic reports in R. This position works under general supervision.

• Pull and process Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera data from an Oracle database using custom R functions and packages
• Generate workflows for pulling covariate data, especially those that change in space and time (e.g., temperature and precipitation)
• Contribute to custom R packages, especially adding documentation and new functions
• Create procedures to visualize and understand raw data
• Assess data quality and identify inconsistencies in data that require further checking
• Create data workflow graphics and documentation to ensure consistent pulling and processing of data

• Assess patterns in data to separate noise (e.g., sampling issues, classification differences, detection differences) from abundance trends
• Analyze trail camera data using a range of models with covariates (e.g., occupancy, N‑mixture, Poisson regression, generalized additive mixed models, etc.)
• Run frequentist and Bayesian models with various fixed and random effect structures
• Assess model fit and model predictions
• Visualize model predictions spatially and temporally

• Contribute to analysis and writing of peer-reviewed manuscripts, edit manuscripts, respond to reviewer comments, create graphs, tables, and supplemental material for manuscripts
• Conduct literature review and participate in reading group discussions of manuscripts
• Lead in writing of annual reports and developing PowerPoint presentations and posters for technical and lay audiences
• Generate dynamic reports to communicate annual decision support products
• Contribute to oral presentation for technical and lay audiences