Thank you for your interest in joining CLEAR! We welcome applications from academics, community members, scientists, those with non-traditional career paths, and others who connect with our work based on the available positions listed below.

CLEAR’s membership is characterized by 2SLGBTQIA+, gender minority (women, non-binary, gender fluid, and trans), BIPOC, and local people. CLEAR members include high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, full-time and part-time staff, and professors in addition to our director, Dr. Max Liboiron (they/them, Red River Métis/Michif & white settler). Our goal is to infuse our values of humility, accountability, and good land relations into everything we do, from how we run lab meetings to who and how we cite. We prioritize peer-to-peer learning and co-mentorship. An application to any CLEAR position is also an application to this community. We highly recommend consulting the CLEAR lab book before applying, as it details many of our cultural norms and expectations.

Currently open researcher positions, all levels:

• Graduate student and postdoc positions: There are currently no open, general graduate student positions in CLEAR (they are all filled!). The exception is sometimes for Indigenous students and students with their own external institutional funding (see below)
• Undergraduate research assistants: For students at Memorial University, every semester We have positions for students taking classes through the MUCEP program. Applicants are in the first couple of weeks of each semester.
• Inuit researchers in Nunatsiavut: At the moment (fall 2024), these are all filled. But we often have short-term and long-term positions for Inuit youth and adults in Nunatsiavut. Reach out to Liz Pijogge at the Nunatsiavut Research Centre in Nain for details.
• Indigenous grad students, Artists or Research Assistants: We sometimes have dedicated funding for Indigenous graduate positions (full-time, based in the Geography Department), artists (short-term residencies or contracts) or research assistantships (part-time). All positions are funded. Please reach out to Max Liboiron outlining your areas of interest, type of position, and desired timeline to see if we have availability and capacity.

Prospective externally funded graduate or postdoc students:

All graduate students applying to CLEAR must be fully funded. The positions listed above are the only ones for which we currently have internal funding to offer. If you are a graduate student who already has external funding or are applying for funding from a research agency such as the Tri-Council or Fullbright (not self-funded), you are welcome to send an introductory email.

Community partnerships on plastic pollution monitoring:

We welcome inquiries from not-for-profits and community groups in Newfoundland and Labrador who are looking to monitor plastic pollution in their areas. We work with several Indigenous councils, organizations, and communities from across Canada and internationally. Depending on our capacities, we can provide technical training, co-application for funding/grants, use of our lab space, and other forms of capacity-sharing. See our plastic monitoring project page for details on the type of work we do.

Temporary hosting at the lab:

We often have requests to join the CLEAR lab as a visitor or guest for extended periods (weeks, months). As a training lab, we welcome people’s interest in joining our lab community temporarily. Please see our page on long-term hosting for details and processes for application.

Tips for applying to CLEAR

Whether you are applying for a graduate position or through a job add, here are some insights into how we choose to interview or accept applicants:

• We pay much more attention to cover letters/introductory emails than to resumes or CVs. We are specifically looking for alignment with the values of the lab, rather than experience (since we’re a training lab at a university, we often hire people with low or no experience– giving then experience is our job!)
• When writing about how you align with CLEAR values, use examples and explain what you mean. If you simply say, “CLEAR’s values of humility, accountability, and collectively align with my own,” we have no idea if that’s true or if that’s a copy and paste from the job ad or website. What do you mean by humility? What is an example of that in your past work or life?
• Cover letters written entirely by ChatGPT never get to the next stage. It’s not that we don’t like ChatGPT– on the contrary, we use it a lot! But a cover letter or introduction written entirely by ChatGPT only reorganizes the text in our job ad or website without examples, without new understandings, and without insight into you as an applicant. A better way to use ChatGPT is to write a draft yourself, then ask ChatGPT to professionalize or tidy it up for you.
• Look at our website and lab book before you apply. Because we hire based on our values, you should learn what those are and how we define them. CLEAR is a very unique lab in that regard, and all our job ads ask applicants to explicitly address our values. If they aren’t addressed in a meaningful way, applications do not go to the next stage.