Postdoctoral fellow: Wildland fire and human health

Kathy and Steve Berman Western Forest and Fire Initiative
School for Environment and Sustainability
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 

University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to investigate human health, health equity, and environmental justice aspects of wildland fire. The successful candidate will join the Western Forest and Fire Initiative (WFFI), an interdisciplinary working group of faculty, students, and postdocs who aim to understand and develop strategies for managing forests, fire, and communities in the western US as an integrated social-environmental system (SES). The fellow will undertake a one-year focused research project that culminates in a practical policy recommendation and a published manuscript in a scholarly journal. The project will entail an in-depth investigation of one aspect of the relationship between wildland fire, smoke, and human health that also recognizes larger complex system dynamics. The research question and analytical approach will be identified and developed in collaboration with faculty, practitioners and thought leaders convened through the WFFI in spring and summer 2022.

Start date: Summer or fall 2023

Term: One year with the possibility of extension, 1.00 FTE

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan (flexible)

Salary: $54,840 (benefits-eligible)         

Institution: University of Michigan

Qualifications: Ph.D. in public health, nursing, social work, sociology, geography, psychology, public policy and planning, emergency management, or another related field, and interest in working on interdisciplinary problems related to wildfire risk in the western US.  Ideal applicants will have:

• Formal training and research experience with human and/or public health topics including environmental risk, natural hazard, and emergency management; health services, health policy, disaster and natural hazard response and recovery; protective action and/or coping behavior; qualitative, quantitative, spatial, and/or mixed methods.
• Experience with interdisciplinary research, stakeholder engagement, knowledge co-production
• Knowledge about forest, wildfire, climate change, and/or community socio-economic issues in the western US.

The post-doc will work under the mentorship of Dr. Sue Anne Bell (School of Nursing) with additional mentorship from Dr. Paige Fischer (School for Environment and Sustainability) and Dr. Nancy French, Senior Research Scientist, Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), and , and a team of other faculty members engaged with the WFFI.

The Western Forest and Fire Initiative at the University of Michigan

The WFFI is made possible with support from Kathy and Steve Berman. The overarching goal of the WFFI is to improve society’s ability to mitigate the risks of large wildfires, exacerbated by climate change, to western forests and communities in forested areas. The WFFI aims to serve as a research hub and a bridging organization, working closely with practitioners and other researchers in the US West to identify research questions and undertake intensive problem analyses to answer those questions. The WFFI will pursue four main objectives:

1. Improve scientific understanding of wildfire risk as a social-environmental system, and how to manage forests and communities as such under changing climate conditions.
2. Support groups of stakeholders in communicating and coordinating their programmatic and policy efforts around forest management, fire risk, community socio-economic development, and climate change. 
3. Build the capacity of future scholars to work on fire-prone forest and community issues in the West from a complex adaptive systems perspective.
4. Create a robust agenda and set of strategies for policy and management changes.

For more information, visit 

https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/wffi

https://nursing.umich.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/sue-anne-bell

https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/alexandra-paige-fischer

https://www.mtu.edu/mtri/about/staff/research-administrative/french/

How to apply

To apply, please submit the following in a single PDF file to klucinda@umich.edu with “WFFI Wildland Fire and Human Health postdoc application” in the subject line:

• Cover letter describing your relevant experience and scholarly interests
• Curriculum vitae
• Relevant publications
• References (to be contacted after an initial interview)

Applications will be considered beginning March 14, 2023, until the position is filled. 

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity employer.