Postdoctoral Fellow
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Location: Washington, D.C., USA
Last Date: June 27, 2008
Vacancy Announcement
Postdoctoral Fellow
Washington, DCUnited States
Job ID: 08-121
Division: EPTD
Recruitment Type: International
Duration: 2 Year
Application Deadline:
Position Type: Renewable
Description:
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow (PDF) for its Environment, Production and Technology Division. Under the supervision of the Division Director and guided by the Research Fellow and Senior Scientist leading the Global Change research theme of IFPRI, and in close collaboration with other staff as appropriate, the successful post-doctoral fellow will conduct research and analysis on land use patterns and shifts under alternative scenarios of global environmental and economic change. The work of the PDF will closely follow the objectives of the IFPRI’s research sub-theme 1.1, which examines the functioning of global food systems and closely analyzes the drivers of agricultural production, crop productivity and their effect on human well-being, under emerging environmental and economic stresses. This program seeks to examine the linkages between agriculture and energy, so as to better understand the impacts of growth in renewable energy demand from crop-based feedstocks on hunger and poverty. The individual will provide research, communications, and writing support to the other members of the research team, in support of the Division’s fund-raising, publication, and research objectives.
The position is a two-year, fixed-term appointment, and is renewable depending on performance and funding. Please note that Postdoctoral Fellow appointments at IFPRI have a maximum term of three (3) years, inclusive of any approved appointment extensions. This position is based at IFPRI headquarters located in Washington, D.C.
Essential Duties:
• Conducts research and analysis on global energy demand from biofuels, and their impacts on agricultural and non-agricultural land use.
• Carries out analysis of biofuel-driven impacts on agricultural markets and food availability, under alternative scenarios of socio-economic and environmental change.
• Works with suitable regional and global economic models of agricultural production and land use, which are partial- or general-equilibrium in nature, to carry out analysis of economically-driven growth in biofuels production on agricultural economies and linkages with other important economic sectors and activities
• Building a modeling framework that accounts for land use change interactions with forestry, urban expansion, other non-agricultural land uses. This modeling should take into account changes in population, income and key environmental factors, such as climate change. Necessary linkages will be created with IFPRI’s IMPACT global partial-equilibrium agricultural sector model, and other global and national policy models within IFPRI.
• Work closely with the principal researchers who develop and maintain the other global models used within the global change program, and supervise support research staff as necessary
• Maintain a high level of research output for publication outlets both within IFPRI, and within the wider scientific community, on topics of close relevance to the global change research theme.
• Creates linkages to possible external collaborators and research groups, when possible, in order to expand the portfolio of land use analysis tools within EPT as well as to create synergies with complementary modeling tools and methods.
• Supports EPTD contributions to internal and external reviews such as Program and Management Reviews as well as annual and mid-term planning
Required Skills:
• Ph.D. in Applied Economics, Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Public Policy or other relevant fields.
• Research experience in policy analysis and policy recommendations relating to environmental or natural resource issues in developing country economies.
• Extensive experience with mathematical modeling methods and complementary econometric techniques
• Outstanding ability to perform thoughtful, critical analyses of own as well as existing research.
See below for additional required skills
Required Skills:
• Ability to work with researchers from other sciences and backgrounds.
• Excellent communication skills (both oral and written).
• Thorough knowledge of economic policy modeling techniques and the required global databases on which they depend
• Ability to incorporate important environmental factors such as climate, land quality and water availability into economic policy models of agricultural production and land use.
Preferred qualifications
• Strong knowledge of GAMS, and the ability to translate other modeling languages into a format compatible with GAMS.
• Knowledge of partial- and general-equilibrium economic models is also highly desirable
• Direct experience working with models of energy supply and demand is also highly desirable
• Experience and demonstrated excellence in written and oral presentations.
To Apply
If you have previously applied ONLINE to an IFPRI position, http://careers.ifpri.org/applyifpri.asp?act=login&cocode=ifpri&reccode=mdourado&jobid=ifpri08-121 access your existing profile and continue your application for this particular position.
If this is your first time applying ONLINE to any IFPRI position, http://careers.ifpri.org/applyIfpri2.asp?ifpri?ifpri08-121?mdourado to upload your resume and apply.
If you have technical difficulties and cannot access the online application form or have questions about the form, please send an email with your question to ifprijobs@cgiar.org