Ohio State University (SENR)

Position Description: Seeking a candidate with a strong disciplinary background in psychology, communications, behavioral economics, or decision science and some knowledge of agriculture and/or environmental science. The ideal candidate will have core theoretical interests in human behavior/decision making, with a focus on farmer land use/management decisions and private lands conservation. The candidate must also have strong quantitative analytical skills, experience with leading statistical packages (e.g., SPSS, SAS, STATA, R, LISREL/AMOS), and a demonstrated ability to prepare/author manuscripts. Knowledge of GIS is desirable, but not required. The candidate will work under the supervision of Dr. Robyn Wilson, and have the opportunity to collaborate with one of the country’s largest faculty groups in the Environmental Social Sciences (http://ess.osu.edu) as part of the Environmental and Social Sustainability Lab. This is a 12 month contract position with a proposed (but flexible) start date of August 2021. The position is based in Columbus, OH, at The Ohio State University in the School of Environment and Natural Resources. Please apply by May 24th for consideration at http://tinyurl.com/ucmkd8n4

Detailed Job Description
The candidate will develop research questions to be answered by existing survey data sets on farmer decision making (e.g., land use decisions in response to changing economic conditions, land management decisions in response to changing climate conditions). Specifically, the candidate will 1) conduct literature reviews in the context of private lands conservation, farmer decision making and general behavioral theory; 2) identify gaps and develop research questions/hypotheses to be answered by existing data; 3) conduct secondary data analysis on existing data sets (e.g., structural/process modeling); 4) prepare manuscripts related to farmer decision making; 5) prepare presentations and present findings at local, regional and national meetings; and 6) prepare general summary reports or policy briefs for public dissemination.

Essential Duties
50%        Conducts literature reviews and develops manuscripts.
30%        Analyzes existing survey data sets.
10%        Writes general summary reports or policy briefs for public dissemination.
10%        Other duties (e.g., working with graduate/honors students, preparing and delivering presentations).

Required Education/Experience

·         PhD in a relevant social science discipline, or applied natural resources management;

·         Experience conducing quantitative social science research and data analysis;

·         Experience in the preparation of technical reports and research manuscripts;

·         Successful completion of a criminal background check is required.