Remote sensing applications for mapping and monitoring global forest carbon stock and dynamics

The NASA Postdoctoral Program offers a remote opportunity for scientists to engage in research on global forest carbon dynamics using remote sensing applications. Candidates will analyze satellite and airborne data to map forest structure, biomass, and changes due to climate and human activities. They will collaborate with a team, develop research proposals, and contribute to publications. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Reference Code: 0111-NPP-JUL25-ARC-EarthSci

How To Apply:

All applications must be submitted in Zintellect. Please visit the NASA Postdoctoral Program website for application instructions and requirements.

A complete application to the NASA Postdoctoral Program includes:
• Research proposal
• Three letters of recommendation
• Official doctoral transcript documents

Description:

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, PlanetScope) 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 collaboration 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.

Field of Science: Earth Science

Advisors:

Ian Brosnan (Ian.g.brosnan@nasa.gov, (650) 604-1881)

Taejin Park (taejin.park@nasa.gov, (650) 604-3329)

Applications with citizens from Designated Countries will not be accepted at this time, unless they are Legal Permanent Residents of the United States. A complete list of Designated Countries can be found at: https://www.nasa.gov/oiir/export-control.

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;
• 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.

Questions about this opportunity? Please email npp@orau.org.

Point of Contact: Mikeala

Eligibility Requirements:
• Degree: Doctoral Degree.