PhD Scholarship

University of Auckland

Help NZ's wine industry make giant steps - two fully funded PhD scholarships up for grabs!

New Zealand Winegrowers are inviting enthusiastic students to apply for a three year, fully funded PhD scholarship, and play a leading role in a project aimed at helping New Zealand vineyards to have a more sustainable future.

Be part of a cutting edge project

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work within New Zealand's exciting $1.5 billion, world-renowned wine industry, which is leading the way globally in research and innovation.

The ultimate aim of the project is to increase our knowledge on the factors influencing vineyard longevity and sustainability and help protect the future of the industry.

Vineyards around the country are being studied to understand how the impacts of conventional vs 'future' management techniques contribute to the longevity and sustainability of the crops. Over multiple grape harvests, microbiological, chemical, weather and grapevine physiology data will be gathered for analysis.

Your goal will be to help us understand and identify interesting evolutionary and functional relationships within and between organisms, and the impact of vineyard management has on these relationships, by figuring out:

How to reliably explore the data for causal relationships?

How to model the interactions between organisms and environment?

What statistical methods best accommodate the complexity of this experiment?

Are you up for the task?

We're looking for a motivated PhD student who's interested and excited about researching data-driven model and method development to help us advance New Zealand's vineyard sustainability and longevity prospects.

You'll need an Honours in Statistics, Bioinformatics (or equivalent), strong research potential, and be able to commence work by June 2016 (second student to start in 2-3 years' time).

Ideally, you'll have fundamental knowledge in multivariate data analysis, and statistical computing and database management.

It's important that you're also a great communicator, who's comfortable and keen to work collaboratively with a group of statisticians, biologists, chemists and wine industry representatives.

International students are encouraged to apply.

The bottom line

The scholarship includes a tax-free stipend of NZ$25,000 per year, for three years.

The scholarship is fully funded through the New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) Vineyard Ecosystems Programme, a partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

A second PhD student will be sought in 2-3 years' time, however, we encourage potential applicants to make contact.

Professional Development

Our successful student will be placed at the University of Auckland within an internationally renowned research group, and will have access to a wide range of academic support.

You'll have the opportunity to hone your presentation and communication skills by making and attending presentations, seminars, conferences within New Zealand's wine industry.

As part of this project you'll be exposed to and working with some of the great minds behind New Zeeland's 6th largest export industry, and will get the chance to work with colleagues across Auckland University's Department of Statistics, School of Biological Sciences, and School of Chemical Sciences.

How do I apply?

Applications must include:

A current CV

Full academic transcripts

A covering letter, and

Contact details of two referees.

Please email your application to Dr Steffen Klaere: s.klaere@auckland.ac.nz

See you in New Zealand!