Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Interdisciplinary Informatics are sponsored jointly by the Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Biological Sciences (BIO) to encourage research and training that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries between them. These fellowships provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research and educational activities in biology and informatics to a wide range of recent doctoral recipients (biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and others) who seek to conduct research on biological questions using informatics tools and methods. It is expected that the Fellows trained through these fellowships will play an important role in training the future workforce. Postdoctoral training in informatics will permit junior scientists trained in biology, mathematical, chemical, and physical sciences to play key roles in developing new quantitative tools and methods that will advance informatics in biology and other fields.
The research and training plan is entitled "Integrating demographic and wildlife population data to understand the effects of housing growth on avian populations." Housing growth is changing American landscapes and may have substantial effects on avian populations. The research utilizes a geographic information system and population models to investigate how housing development has affected avian population trends over the past 30 years across five major ecoregions of the Northeastern U.S. Housing growth forecasts are being used to project future changes in avian populations.
