Letter of motivation

Dear All
I am applying for a PhD position and need to submit a letter of motivation. Below is my second draft. Please review it and give your feedback for improvement

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Dear Sir

I am writing to apply for the PhD position at ABC University.

I have completed master’s program in Natural Resources Management from xy University, New Delhi, India and graduate program in Biosciences from yz, New Delhi, India. My career aim is to work in the area of biodiversity conservation through resources management perspective. The challenge of designing and implementing conservation strategies while managing the resource needs of various user groups in a sustainable and equitable manner motivate me to work in this field.

I was introduced to the subject of ecology during my graduation course work where I learned the fundamentals of the subject. Later, during my post-graduation at xy University, I explored the subject of ecology and biodiversity in deep through study of courses, such as Ecology, Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation, Ecosystem Dynamic & Climate Change and Geosciences. I have been interested in ecology and biodiversity from the very beginning of my career and hence to strengthen my competencies in this area, I participated in number of field excursions to different types of ecosystems in India, where I learned various field techniques and methodologies related to study of species richness, species diversity and disturbance regime in anthropogenic managed ecosystem. Apart from ecology and biodiversity, I have an excellent working knowledge of Remote Sensing, Geographical Information System, Spatial data analysis and application of statistical techniques into GIS domain. My work during summer dissertation and master’s thesis has further enhanced my competencies in area of ecology and biodiversity. My summer dissertation project was based on the analysis of the fragmentation micro-watershed. In this project, I used Land-Use Land-Cover (LULC) maps and field observations to identify the areas of intervention for agronomic improvement in a micro-watershed. My master’s thesis was based on the identification of landscape variables contributing to the elephant-train collisions in state of Assam, India. This project involved Digital Image Processing and Spatial & GIS analysis on remotely sensed data. Supervised classification of the Landsat V data into pre-defined land-use categories followed by fragmentation analysis and statistical analysis of landscape variables were carried out to determine the variables contributing to elephant-train collisions. This project has helped in the understanding of the ecological variables contributing to the elephant-train collisions.

I have been an active participant of the extra-curricular events during my university years. I enjoy working in the teams and was part of organizing committee for university annual fest, cultural program and field excursion.

I am interested in working on the research project aimed at designing system for evaluating emission for forest ecosystem due to human-induced land use change. I strongly believe that we need to account for the change in emission due to forest land-use change. As it has been proved that forests are one of the largest sink for the carbon dioxide and any human induced change in the forest ecosystem that disturb the sink capacity need to be monitored using proper system. This evaluation of the emission factor will be crucial in the future climate negotiations paving the way for the sustainable management of forest. The integration of Geographical Information System (GIS) and Statistics make this project even more exciting. I understand that project of this nature will provide me an opportunity to use my existing skills and further enhance my competencies.

I am enclosing my curriculum vitae and contact details of two references with this letter. I feel that my professional knowledge coupled with my personal interests makes me a suitable candidate for his opportunity. I am excited by the possibility of working on this project with a diverse team.

Thank you for considering my application and I look forward to your acceptance

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