PhD position in Fossil lagerstätten at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart (Germany)

Homepage: www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de – Project: Palaeobiology and palaeoecology of Mesozoic marine reptiles
We are seeking to the earliest possible date a highly motivated student with an interest in vertebrate palaeontology and palaeoecology to fill a three-year PhD position funded by the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart. The museum is an internationally renowned re-search institution, with extensive palaeontological and neontological collections.

Project: The Posidonia Shale is one of the classic European fossil lagerstätte. It has been intensively sampled for both invertebrate and vertebrate fossils for over 400 years, resulting in extensive museum collections, one of the largest of which is housed at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart. The funded PhD project will focus on ontogenetic and strati-graphic changes in tooth morphology, microstructure, and wear in Posidonia Shale marine reptiles (ichthyosaurs) with the goal of understanding how dental characteristics change through ontogeny and phylogeny in these marine reptiles. The Museum has an ongoing em-phasis on understanding the palaeoecology of fossil lagerstätten, and the student will have access to top experts in this field of research. The project will be supervised by Dr. Erin Maxwell (http://www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/forschung/palaeontologie/maxwell), Dr. Rai-ner Schoch, PD Dr. M. Rasser (Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart) and Prof. James H. Nebelsick!
  (Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen).

Required qualifications
•       MSc or equivalent in biology or palaeontology
•       Strong English language skills
•       Research experience is an asset
•       The candidate will be officially registered as a doctoral student at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, and must satisfy all requirements for that institution
•       Application should include a cover letter, CV including the contact information of two academic references, as well as a 1-page statement of research interests detailing: A) past research experience; and B) your research interests, in particular with respect to this project

The salary is 50% at E 13 TV-L (German public service salary scale). We are an equal op-portunity employer. Handicapped persons with equal qualifications will receive preferential consideration; as part of our equal job opportunity agenda we particularly welcome applica-tions by women. Please send your application by email by 31. March 2014 with all above mentioned documents collated in one PDF (5 MB) file to Doktorand-Palaeontologie@smns-bw.de. If your application is written in German please include the English abstract of your master thesis as a writing sample. For further information, please contact Dr. E. Maxwell (+49 711 8936 145, email: erin.maxwell@smns-bw.de).