Positions

14 PhD Student positions in chicken welfare, genomics, and comparative neuroscience

 

Chronic stress is at the core of many animal welfare challenges. To improve welfare of laying hens, it is crucial to understand how hens respond to stress, and to devise strategies to reduce chronic stress in laying hens. However, chronic stress is not easy to detect and quantify, because it is essentially an internal response. We should be able to measure such an internal response in the animals’ brains.

 

The ChickenStress consortium aims to understand how the stress response is regulated in the avian brain and to minimize chronic stress by investigating the three main contributors to variation in the stress response: genetic variability, early-life environment, and current environment.

 

We are currently hiring 14 Early Stage Researchers (PhD students) across the entire consortium to help us achieve these aims. We will provide a distinctive multi-disciplinary training environment which will prepare the PhD students for careers in academia, policy making, or industry. Projects range from comparative neuroanatomy and neurophysiology through genomics and epigenetics of stress regulation to applied animal behaviour. Studentships are open to applicants of all nationalities. Salary will vary from country to country and institution to institution.

 

More details about each of the PhD projects and how to apply for them can be found on the website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cbe/chickenstress.

 

Deadline: 15 May 2019