Postdoctoral Researcher - Agroecosystem Modelling and Digital Twins

In the coming decades, climate change and shifts in land use will have a significant impact on the productivity of terrestrial ecosystems in terms of the services they provide (food, feed, fiber, energy), as well as on the challenges society must address. At the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences – Agrosphere (IBG-3), we develop solutions to safeguard ecosystem services based on an improved understanding of hydrological and biogeochemical processes in terrestrial systems.

Our focus is on agricultural and forest systems, which are coming under increasing pressure due to global change. Innovative observation technologies are combined with laboratory experiments and modeling to investigate and predict terrestrial processes across scales (from the pore scale through the field scale to the continental scale), thereby contributing to the sustainable use of the natural resources water, soil, and atmosphere.

You will contribute to the development of field- and farm-scale agroecosystem digital twins within our interdisciplinary and international research team. The position is embedded in the Pheno

Rob2 Core Project 6, which aims to fuse information from advanced sensing technologies with process-based and data-driven models across spatial and temporal scales.

• Further development and application of the AgroC agroecosystem model for simulating water, carbon, nutrient and energy fluxes at the field and farm scale
• Integration of AgroC with the Parallel Data Assimilation Framework (PDAF) and development of suitable observation operators
• Development of workflows for the integration of near-real-time observations of crop growth, crop stress, hydrological states and fluxes, and nutrient dynamics into agroecosystem digital twins
• Development and application of data-driven, surrogate and hybrid modelling approaches to complement process-based agroecosystem modelling and enable efficient digital twin applications
• Application of digital twins at selected Pheno Rob experimental sites to investigate crop performance, ecosystem functions and trade-offs between ecosystem services under different management options
• Close collaboration with scientists and doctoral researchers within Core Project 6 and from other Pheno
  
  Rob2 core projects
• Dissemination of research results through scientific publications, presentations at international conferences, and contributions to collaborative research proposals

• Masters with subsequent PhD degree in environmental sciences, geosciences, agricultural sciences, computational sciences, applied mathematics, physics or a related field
• Strong background in agroecosystem, hydrological or environmental modelling and/or scientific computing
• Experience in the development and application of process-based models and/or model–data fusion and data assimilation methods
• Very good programming skills in Python and/or Fortran; knowledge of additional programming languages is an advantage
• Experience with Linux/UNIX-based scientific computing environments and modern software development practices
• Experience with parallel computing and high-performance computing is an advantage
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a highly interdisciplinary research environment
• Strong communication and scientific writing skills
• Excellent command of written and spoken English (at least C1 level according to the CEFR:

), ideally supported by a certificate confirming the language level. Knowledge of the German language is not mandatory but a bonus.

• Meaningful tasks:
  The position offers a varied and diverse role in an international environment
• Work-life balance:
  Optimal conditions for balancing work and private life, as well as a family-friendly company policy.…