Visiting Academic Staff at the rank of Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR VISITING ACADEMIC STAFF

The Department of Biological Sciences is inviting applications for the position of Visiting Academic Staff at the rank of Assistant Professor, in the field of Biodiversity and Ecology for the Spring semester 2020-21 (15th January 2021 - 31st May 2021). The final offer of the position depends on availability of University funds.

QUALIFICATIONS AND SELECTION CRITERIA:

• The candidate must have a PhD from a recognised university on a relevant subject.
• All postdoctoral courses of the Department are taught in English. Excellent spoken English is thus a requirement for the position.
• Applicants should have a tenure-track or permanent position at a recognised university and their research profile should be relevant to the postgraduate courses described below. In exceptional cases, the applicant might be a younger academic who has demonstrated academic excellence. It is self-evident that the selected applicant must have secured a leave of absence (sabbatical or unpaid leave of absence) from their university.
• Applicants need not be citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. Applicants should however ensure, before applying, that in case they are selected they will be residing in Cyprus on a full-time basis during the employment period; submission of application implies acceptance of this condition. Acceptance of this term must be also explicitly stated in the letter of application
• Additional selection criteria (optional): (a) Academic excellence (papers, books, other publications, citations, as a function of the research career length of the candidate and their university). (b) Teaching needs of the Department.

APPLICATION:

Applicants are invited to submit their application and upload the following documents in PDF form, at the following link: https://applications.ucy.ac.cy/recruitment/main

• Full recent CV
• An expression of interest letter for the specific position.
• Copies of degrees and transcripts.
• Representative publications.
• Teaching experience.
• If applying for the first time to the Department, applicants must also arrange for two academic referees to send letters of recommendation directly to (sofokleous.athina@ucy.ac.cy). The names and e-mails of these referees must be submitted with the application.

Further information can be requested from the following email address: sofokleous.athina@ucy.ac.cy Applications must be submitted by Friday, September 18, 2020, by 11:00 a.m. the latest. Applications submitted after this deadline will not be taken into account.

EMPLOYMENT TERMS:

Invited Academics are employed on a full-time basis, which means an average of 9 teaching hours per week (i.e., 3 courses per semester).

Monthly salaries may vary in accordance with general variations imposed by the state. In addition, a 13th salary will be paid relative to their total employment time.

Invited Academic (Assistant Professor) €3,122.10

TEACHING REQUIREMENTS:

Visiting Academics will be required to teach the following courses:

Postgraduate courses Spring semester 2020/2021

• ΒΙΟ 865 Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing in Ecology 4 hours (3 teaching hours + 1 hour for tutoring) (according to the time schedule, the course will be offered every Monday and Thursday, at 18:00-19:30, with tutoring every Wednesday, at 13:00-14:00).
• BIO 861 Advanced Issues in Ecology 4 hours (3 teaching hours + 1 hour for tutoring) (according to the time schedule, the course will be offered every Tuesday and Friday, at 16:30-18:00, with tutoring every Wednesday, at 15:00-16:00).
• BIO 867 Selected Topics in Evolutionary Biology 4 hours (3 teaching hours + 1 hour for tutoring) (according to the time schedule, the course will be offered every Tuesday and Friday, at 18:00-19:30, with tutoring every Wednesday, at 16:00-17:00).

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS:

ΒΙΟ 861 Advanced Issues in Ecology (10 ECTS)
Lectures on basic principles of evolutionary ecology, with emphasis on reproductive and life strategies, intra- and interspecific interactions, population ecology and community assembly. The main methods of sampling and data evaluation will be presented, e.g. qualitative, semiquantitative and quantitative population and community estimates, recording of environmental variables, sampling, estimation of most important ecological metrics, as well as the main statistical methods for ecological data using examples from real studies. Most methods will also be applied using the respective software. Students will undertake and present essays on selected subjects from the recent literature.

ΒΙΟ 865 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing in Ecology (10 ECTS)
An introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, with an emphasis on their applications in ecology. The course will involve a research project applying these methods to an ecological study. Students will learn how to incorporate data obtained from remote sensing, such as topographic, vegetational and climatic data, into analyses with geographic coordinates (e.g. from GPS) in GIS software and prepare results for presentation of research findings.

ΒΙΟ 867 Selected Topics on Evolutionary Biology (10 ECTS) 
A series of lectures and discussions will address the topic chosen for the semester, examining the literature on a particular theme, with a focus on transformative and multidisciplinary research in the field. Examples of topics will include speciation, coevolution, adaptation, and phylogenetics.