Job Information
- Organisation/Company: NIBIO - Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research
- Department: The National Forest Inventory (NFI)
- Research Field: Computer science; Agricultural sciences » Forest sciences; Biological sciences » Biodiversity
Offer Description
Key Information
The National Forest Inventory is looking for a PhD candidate to develop cutting-edge multimodal artificial intelligence methods for forest biodiversity mapping and monitoring. The project will investigate how heterogeneous sources of information—including remote sensing, forest inventory data, existing forest maps, environmental and climatic data, and emerging large-scale AI representations—can be jointly exploited to characterize forests and their biodiversity.
The research will focus on developing multimodal learning approaches that combine complementary forest information across data sources, spatial scales, and time. A central scientific challenge will be to learn integrated representations of forest ecosystems from datasets with very different characteristics, resolutions, coverage, and levels of supervision. These representations will subsequently be used to address important biodiversity-related knowledge gaps, with particular emphasis on mapping old-growth forests and key biodiversity habitats at regional and national scales.
The PhD position is a 3 years position and is located at NIBIO's headquarters in Ås, approximately 30 km south of Oslo.
The candidate will be enrolled in a PhD programme at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) and will become part of the emerging AI for Nature research environment jointly developed by NIBIO and NMBU.
About the position
The candidate will be jointly supervised by advisors from both NIBIO and NMBU.
The position offers a unique opportunity to conduct fundamental AI research while addressing questions of high societal and environmental relevance. The candidate will have access to extensive national forest datasets and geospatial information, work within an interdisciplinary research environment, and contribute to developing the next generation of AI methods for large-scale forest and biodiversity monitoring
To be a current applicant, you cannot have previously held a research fellowship position at NIBIO, and you cannot have a previous doctorate or have previously held a research fellowship position with funding from the Research Council.
If you do not have skills in Norwegian, Swedish or Danish at level A2 upon employment, NIBIO will offer free Norwegian language training with the goal of achieving Norwegian skills at at least this level.
Main responsibilities
The PhD project will investigate new approaches for learning from multiple complementary sources of forest and environmental information. The research will extend beyond approaches based on individual datasets and explore how multimodal artificial intelligence can integrate complementary information from multiple data sources to characterize forest attributes that are difficult or impossible to observe reliably from any single source alone
The main tasks include:
- Developing multimodal deep learning and representation-learning methods for integrating heterogeneous forest and environmental datasets, including remote sensing, forest inventory observations, existing forest maps, climatic and environmental variables, and large-scale AI-derived geospatial representations.
- Investigating approaches for combining information across different spatial resolutions, temporal scales, and data modalities, including situations where some modalities are incomplete or unavailable.
- Exploring foundation-model and self-supervised learning approaches for extracting transferable representations from large-scale forest and Earth-observation datasets.
- Developing AI models for predicting and mapping old-growth forests, key biodiversity habitats, and other ecologically relevant forest characteristics.
- Incorporating ecological knowledge and biodiversity observations into model development and evaluation.
- Evaluating model generalization and transferability across forest types, environmental gradients, and geographical regions.
- Producing regional and nationwide biodiversity-related forest maps and assessing their accuracy and ecological relevance.
- Publishing results in high-quality international scientific journals and conferences and contributing to collaboration between NIBIO, NMBU, and national and international research partners.
Professional qualifications (required)
- A Master's degree in machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer science, remote sensing, geomatics, data science, or a forest/environmental science discipline with a strong quantitative or AI component
- Strong knowledge of machine learning and deep learning
- Solid programming skills, preferably in Python and modern deep-learning frameworks such as PyTorch
- Experience working with large or complex datasets
- The applicant must be fluent in English, both spoken and written
- The successful candidate must meet the admission requirements for the relevant PhD programme at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
Will be evaluated positively
- Experience with multimodal learning, representation learning, self-supervised learning, or foundation models.
- Experience with geospatial, remote sensing, and citizen science datasets.
- Experience working with heterogeneous datasets originating from different sensors or data sources.
- Familiarity with forest ecology, biodiversity, or natural-resource applications.
- Experience developing reproducible research software and working with high-performance or GPU computing environments.
- Experience publishing or contributing to scientific articles or conference papers.
Personal qualifications
- Good interpersonal and communication skills
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Ability to work under pressure and interact with demanding users
- Commitment and enthusiasm for working as part of an ambitious research team
- Ability to collaborate with both internal and external experts with diverse academic backgrounds and skills
Salary and benefits
- Opportunity to work on an important social mission with focus on sustainability and future-oriented projects
- Challenging, exciting and varied tasks in interdisciplinary teams
- A flexible everyday life with the opportunity to influence one's own work tasks
- A skilled professional environment with good colleagues
- A generous personnel policy with welfare schemes that focus on employees' different stages of life
The position is remunerated according to the Norwegian State Salary Scale as PhD research fellow, position 1017, salary NOK 555.000 - 635.000, commensurate with qualifications and experience.
Membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, which includes a good occupational pension scheme, occupational injury and group life insurance, and low-interest home loans.
How to apply for the position
Please send your application with CV electronically via the link on this page.
Take originals of diplomas and letters of recommendation with you if invited to an interview, and submit a copy of them as an attachment along with the electronic application/CV.
We conduct background checks on final candidates as part of our recruitment process.
Other information
We would like to point out that information about applicants may be subject to public disclosure, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (Offentlighetsloven), Section 25. An applicant can request to be exempted from inclusion on a public list of applicants. If the request for confidentiality is denied, the applicant will be notified thereof.
About diversity and inclusion - for applicants living in Norway: In accordance with the Norwegian Civil Service equal opportunities policy, qualified candidates are encouraged to apply - regardless of age, gender, functional disabilities, gaps in CV or national or ethnic background. As a government agency, we have the opportunity to provide positive special treatment for applicants who have a disability, gaps in their CV or immigrant background. Positive special treatment means, among other things, that you will more easily come to the interview. Read more about this here (in norwegian).
About NIBIO and the Department
NIBIO's activities lie within agriculture, food, climate and the environment. The Institute conducts research and management support, and provides knowledge for use in national preparedness, governmental and district management, industry, and the society at large. NIBIO has approximately 750 employees present in all parts of the country. Its main office is located at Ås in Akershus.
NIBIO is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
The National Forest Inventory (NFI) provides information on the condition and development of Norway's forest resources, based on a nation-wide survey of permanent sample plots visited every five years.
Questions about the position
Johannes Breidenbach, Head of Departement, +47 974 77 985
Stefano Puliti, Researcher, +47 936 78 891
Where to apply
Requirements
- Research Field: Computer science — Education Level: Master Degree or equivalent
- Research Field: Agricultural sciences » Forest sciences — Education Level: Master Degree or equivalent
- Research Field: Biological sciences » Biodiversity — Education Level: Master Degree or equivalent
Work Location(s)
- Number of offers available: 1
- Company/Institute: The National Forest Inventory (NFI)
- Country: Norway
Contact
- City: Aas
- Website: http://www.nibio.no
- Street: Høgskoleveien 7
- Postal Code: 1433