Postdoctoral Scholar

Postdoctoral Scholar

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

• This position is an on-site position which requires the incumbent to complete their work primarily at an NAU site, campus, or facility with or without accommodation. Opportunities for remote work are rare.

NAU's Radiant Center for Remote Sensing brings expertise in remote sensing to answer scientific questions across planetary surfaces, atmospheres, ecology, forestry, wildfire science, environmental science, urban planning/geography, geoscience/volcanology, and anthropology/archeology. The Center is housed under the Office of the Vice President for Research, promoting research, scholarship, and creative activity across NAU.

The Radiant Center for Remote Sensing, in collaboration with the Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics Lab in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at NAU's Flagstaff campus, seeks a Postdoctoral Scholar to support a Grand Canyon National Park funded project. The postdoctoral scholar will conduct research to quantify how groundwater flow dynamics behave and change over time, working with extensive remote sensing data including airborne lidar, satellite images, and terrestrial lidar data from caves to map, monitor, and model springs in the canyon.

The scholar will serve as scientific lead on this project, guiding the intellectual development of the methodology for scaling local, point-based observations to landscape/regional scales. Key activities include: (a) working with PI Sankey to analyze time-series images, lidar data, hydrology database, and developing statistical models for upscaling local-level observations to landscape-scale estimates, (b) developing remote sensing-based models of topography, geology, vegetation and snow, (c) developing peer-reviewed manuscripts and presentations.

80% – Research and Publication

• Work collaboratively in research activities including data collection, evaluation, and designing analyses to address primary research questions.
• Lead data analysis, modeling, coding, and synthesis efforts.
• Design and implement research protocols and adapt new procedures, methods, coding, or instrumentation as appropriate to the project goals.
• Read scientific literature, participate in scientific discussions with other members of the research team.
• Author and co-author research papers and manuscripts for publication and present them at conferences and workshops.

15% – Data Metrics

• Collect, curate, synthesize, and analyze research data.
• Develop code, perform data analysis, and develop efficient data analysis pipelines and/or tools as appropriate to project goals.
• Display data for presentation in research conferences and for manuscript preparation; use graphics and statistical software to analyze and present data.
• Document and archive code using GEE or other version control software.
• Perform assigned lab duties to assist in the maintenance of equipment and supplies and various other duties or projects as assigned, as appropriate to project goals.
• Generate data layers that are the results of the models developed above.
• Promote an inclusive and welcoming work environment for all.

5% – Other

• Other duties as assigned.

• PhD or equivalent doctorate in Remote Sensing, Environmental Science, or a relevant field is required.

• Record of successful peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals.
• Expertise with quantitative statistical analyses in R or other programming languages.

Knowledge

• Familiarity with the principles of ecosystem processes and dynamics.
• Expertise in Arizona's forest treatment impacts and ecohydrological responses.
• Knowledge of lidar and UAV image processing.

Skills

• GEE, R, and Python programming skills.
• Data collection, processing, and analysis.

Abilities

• Demonstrated ability to conduct large-scale remote sensing image analysis and machine learning techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to work in cloud-based computing platforms including Google Earth Engine.
• Highly motivated to work collaboratively as part of a research team with individuals from a variety of diverse backgrounds.
• Establishes and maintains effective wor