Part-Time Research Assistant

Location: Penn State University Park, United States of America

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JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS

The Department of Anthropology is seeking a part-time undergraduate research assistant. The student will be conducting lab-based experiments designed to measure a key parameter in an ongoing international research project on Australian bush tomato (Solanum diversiflorum, called wamula in Martu Wangka) foraging ecology.

At the core of the project is a Central Place Foraging model predicting when a hypothetical forager will process wamula near a harvesting patch before transporting it back to camp, rather than carrying unprocessed fruit in bulk. The model requires estimating the field processing threshold (z), the travel distance beyond which field processing increases the net rate of energy delivery to a central place. A critical variable is y₀, the edible fraction of an unprocessed load, here measured not by weight (which we have estimated from fieldwork) but by container volume: how much of a carrying container's capacity is usable edible fruit when packed with whole unprocessed wamula, and how much more capacity becomes available once the fruit are processed (seeds removed, halved, and stacked).

The student will be processing tomatillos (a close wamula analog), measuring the time it takes to process and the changes in load utility (amount of edible fruit) that processing provides.

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