Climate-Smart Post-Doctoral Research Associate

The Climate-Smart Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Rodale Institute will expand Climate-Smart agriculture in the Southern Piedmont region. Responsibilities include data collection using drones, analyzing greenhouse gas emissions, and assessing economic barriers to adopting Climate-Smart practices. The role involves collaboration with various stakeholders and outreach activities such as writing publications and presenting findings. The position requires on-site work in Virginia, MN.
The Climate-Smart program will expand Climate-Smart agriculture and markets across organic and conventional farms in the Southern Piedmont (VA, NC, SC, GA, and AL). This work will implement Climate-Smart cover crops and reduced-till farming and plasticulture, study the impacts of these practices on greenhouse gas emissions and soil health, verify and improve the USDA COMET Planner Model for Southern Piedmont soils, assess the economic and social barriers to transition to Climate-Smart agriculture, evaluate various marketing strategies' abilities to influence consumer behavior toward the purchase of Climate-Smart commodities, develop an easy-to-use app for farmers to utilize while marketing value-added Climate-Smart commodities, and model the impacts that climate change will have on the suite of commodities grown in the region.

This project provides enhanced financial incentives for underserved and small-scale farmers to encourage participation. The project plans to increase revenue streams and provide enhanced financial incentives, equipment, and technical assistance to guide the Southern Piedmont farming community toward the adoption of Climate-Smart agriculture. This is a collaborative project led by Rodale Institute that includes 12 universities, NGOs, and for-profit institutions across the Southeast and Midwest.

The Post Doctoral Research Associate will report to the Climate-Smart Project Director and work in collaboration with the Assistant Professor of Integrative Precision Agriculture – University of Georgia. The Climate-Smart Post-Doctoral Research Associate will lead cover crop density and nutrient composition data collection and analysis across project farms using drone and remote sensing technologies and field sampling. These data will be integrated with Eddy Covariance data collection of ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide and soil health data collected from participating farm test plots.

They will participate in outreach activities that include writing factsheets, bulletins, web articles, peer-reviewed publications, and presenting project results through webinars, meetings, and conference presentations. Additionally, this position will work closely with Climate-Smart partners, the Rodale Institute’s Climate-Smart Outreach Coordinator, Climate-Smart Farm Coordinator, Climate-Smart Research Technician, and other Rodale and project staff to ensure timely and accurate execution of project deliverables.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

Duties include but are not limited to:
• Fly a DJI Mavic 3M multispectral drone collecting cover crop density and other data from enrolled fields.
• Work closely with the Climate-Smart Farm Coordinator and partner technical assistance team to cover crop maturity and termination timing for effective data collection.
• Process and analyze multispectral drone data using Pix4D mapper software.
• Assess cover crop density and health across climate-smart cropping techniques, farms, and farm types.
• Manage and implement the sampling design and collection of cover crop field samples for drone data verification and nutrient analysis.
• Ship cover crop samples to the laboratory for analysis.
• Assess cover crop nutrient analysis across climate-smart cropping techniques, farms, and farm types.
• Work with project partners on the integration of Eddy Covariance greenhouse gas and soil health data with cover crop drone and nutrient analyses.
• Under combined supervision of the Climate-Smart Project Director and Assistant Professor of Integrative Precision Agriculture – University of Georgia, produce peer-reviewed publications and white papers generated from this work.
• Produce grant proposals and research reports, and work with the Rodale Institute Climate-Smart Outreach Coordinator, Communications Department, and project partners to create outreach and education publications, including bulletins, fact sheets, and web articles.
• Present research findings in webinars and regional and national conferences.
• Assist in national and local conference Climate-Smart sessions working with Rodale Institute’s Climate-Smart Outreach Coordinator and project partners to plan and moderate the…