Department of Earth Sciences, South Parks Road, Oxford Reporting to the PI, Prof Erin Saupe, the post holder will be a member of a research group with responsibility for carrying out research for ERC grant ‘Determining the drivers of extinction across space and time’. The post holder will provide guidance to less experienced members of the research group, including research assistants, technicians, and PhD and project students. The post holder will develop a new Bayesian model, MESS, to analyse the dynamics of extirpation. The MESS model will adapt the likelihood function implemented in the Dispersal Extinction Sampling model (DES) by collaborator Silvestro (Hauffe et al. 2023 MEE). The DES model was designed to look at pairs of geographic areas (i.e., sites) and estimate dispersal rates and local extinction rates between them; the post holder will expand and modify this model to allow for multiple sites, among other changes. The post holder will then use the BioDeepTime database (Smith et al. 2023. GEB; with focus on benthic marine invertebrates and microfossils) and the new Bayesian model, MESS, to examine whether extirpation is driven by the same stressors across a species’ range and through time. About you The post holder will hold, or be close to completion, of a relevant PhD/DPhil, together with relevant experience and will possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline to work within established research programmes. They will also be expected to manage their own academic research and associated activities and have previous experience of contributing to publications. They must also have excellent communication skills, including the ability to present research proposals and results, and represent the research group at meetings. This is a 30-month fixed term post available from 1 June 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter. For full details of the role please see the job description.