Post Doctoral Scholar

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Job Title:

Department:

School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University is seeking a postdoc fellow to work with Dr. Kaiguang Zhao and collaborators from USDA, University of Maryland, and Stroud Water Research Center in the areas of hydrologic and biogeochemical Modeling and water quality remote sensing. The postdoc will contribute to research activities of a NASA-funded project on developing of a Carbon Monitoring System for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed to monitor the changes in major carbon budget components on land and in freshwaters. More specifically, agriculture-based net emissions technologies, such as uptake and storage by agricultural soils and bioenergy production, are recognized as important components of future emission pathways to limit global warming and avert unprecedented climate risks. Conservation tillage and cover crop hold promise to improve water quality and soil health and cut substantial carbon emissions and are widely adopted and planned in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. However, the impacts of those conservation practices on the chemical transportse in the coupled terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are largely unknown.

Primary duties for this position include:

• Enhance Soil and Water Assessment Tool - Carbon (SWAT-C) to better represent the coupled terrestrial-aquatic carbon cycling at the watershed scale
• Develop cropland tillage and cover crop maps over the entire CBW by leveraging multi-source remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat, Sentinel-2, WorldView3) and field observations
• Integrate the newly developed tillage and cover crop maps and other remote sensing data (e.g., MODIS, ECOSTRESS, ICESat-2 , GEDI, OCO-2 and -3, SWOT, and SMAP) to constrain the SWAT-C model
• Assess impacts of historical and future agricultural conservation on carbon sources and sinks in both terrestrial (e.g., biomass, soil organic carbon, and lateral carbon fluxes) and freshwater (e.g., burial, outgassing, and export) ecosystems
• Collaborate to prioritize critical ecosystem restoration projects that maximize synergies while limiting trade-offs among climate and other social and environmental goals (e.g., water quality).

The ideal candidate should have the following qualifications and experiences:

• Experience with developing or applying ecosystem models (e.g., SWAT-Carbon, CLM, EPIC, DNDC, and DayCent)
• Experience with analysis of geospatial data and time series data
• Experience with GIS/RS and database environments (e.g., ArcGIS and Quantum GIS)
• Experience with machine learning and statistical learning
• Experience working with large, diverse datasets
• Familiarity with statistical modeling (ideally Bayesian statistics) • Proficiency in Fortran, R, Python, Matlab, or ideally other common languages (e.g., C/C++)
• Strong computational skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills

Additional Information:

This is a one-year position but is extendable if new funding becomes available. The position starts immediately and will be open until filled. Applications should include a Curriculum Vitae and a cover letter briefly stating backgrounds and experiences relevant to the position. Informal inquiries are also welcome and can be directed to zhao.1423@osu.edu

Minimum qualifications;

PhD in related field required

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