Remote sensing mapping and monitoring global forest carbon stock and dynamics

Organization

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

0111-NPP-NOV
26-ARC-Earth Sci

All applications must be submitted in Zintellect.

Please visit the NASA Postdoctoral Program website for application instructions and requirements:

How to Apply

| NASA Postdoctoral Program (orau.org)

A complete application to the NASA Postdoctoral Program includes:

• Research proposal
• Three letters of recommendation
• Official doctoral transcript documents

11/1/2026 6:00:59 PM Eastern Time Zone

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA’s missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology.

This postdoc opportunity is for candidates with special interest in the remote sensing of global forest carbon dynamics. The successful candidate will work with optical and microwave remote sensing data to estimate and map above ground forest structure, biomass, and changes driven by anthropogenic and climate forcing. The candidate will participate with a team of scientists conducting original research using various statistical and machine learning approaches to develop regional and global products and improve our understanding of the drivers of carbon stock changes across a variety of ecosystems.

The candidate will collaborate with the team to integrate a series of optical (e.g., Landsat, Sentinel-2, SBG, Planet Scope) and microwave/radar (ALOS, Sentinel-1, and in future, NISAR and BIOMASS) satellite imagery with airborne and satellite lidar (GEDI, ICESAT-2) measurements of forest structure and conventional ground-based forest inventory data to map and monitor changes of forest structure and biomass and attribute the changes to land use activities and environmental effects.

The selected candidate may also engage with mapping forest disturbance (land use, logging, and tree mortality), fire fuel loads, and biomass carbon change across various forest ecosystems. Also, the candidate may further analyze data products (e.g., fire fuel loads, disturbance type) to improve ecosystem and fire modeling. The candidate will help improve the quantification of the global carbon cycle as a result of human and climate-induced changes and better understand the short‑term and long‑term responses of ecosystems to climate change.

Candidates will be required to formulate a research project in close collaborations with their advisors, perform technical analysis, document algorithms and codes developed for data processing, analysis, science product generation, present at technical conferences, and lead peer‑reviewed publications.

Earth Science

Ian Brosnan

ian.g.brosnan

(650) 604‑1881

Eligibility is currently open to:

• U.S. Citizens;
• U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR);
• Foreign Nationals eligible for an Exchange Visitor J-1 visa status; and,
• Applicants for LPR, asylees, or refugees in the U.S. at the time of application with
  1) a valid EAD card and
  2) I‑485 or I‑589 forms in pending status

Degree:
Doctoral Degree.

Please email npp

Mikeala