Job Description

Postdoctoral Position: Infectious disease modeling and movement behavior at WFU:
The Kortessis Lab at Wake Forest University in the Department of Biology is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join an NSF-funded project aimed at understanding how the perception of disease risk influences the temporal and spatial dynamics of infectious disease.

The postdoctoral researcher will develop theory and mathematical models to address this aim, while working in partnership with a larger collaborative group that includes members at Virginia Tech and the University of Florida. The group spans expertise in biology, ecology, mathematics, statistics, and public health. Primary responsibilities will be to develop and analyze models of behavior (with an emphasis on movement) and how behavior influences the spread of infectious disease and to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals. The position also offers opportunities to develop and fit statistical models to human survey data to explore the drivers of disease spread. Successful researchers will have the opportunity to pursue independent projects related to their interests that are conceptually related to issues of behavior, risk perception, environmental heterogeneity, and population and community dynamics.

Ideal candidates may have training in (but are not limited to) ecological modeling, infectious disease modeling, the mathematical analysis of dynamical systems, spatial distribution modeling, or statistical analysis of population dynamics datasets. All candidates must be curious, enthusiastic about working in a team, and excited about tackling challenging problems.

The Kortessis lab works on understanding the causes and consequences of spatio-temporal heterogeneity on ecological dynamics. Applicants with expertise and interest in these topics but do not have expertise in human infectious disease are encouraged to apply.

Essential Functions:

• Develop and analyze mathematical models of infectious disease and host behavior.
• Disseminate finding and results from models in peer-reviewed journals.
  Other Functions:
• Workers in the position will also present results at regional and national meetings, interact with graduate students, and may fit and interpret statistical models.
• More information about research in the lab can be found at nickkortessis.weebly.com.