Position Summary

This postdoc will coordinate and execute our work with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to develop a framework and geospatial tool(s) for the prioritization of landscape elements with respect to the potential to use natural infrastructure solutions for flood risk reduction in addition to water quality, habitat, and other social benefits in the context of engineering decision making and civil works projects. This process will allow stakeholders to visualize and prioritize geographic areas where natural infrastructure solutions might maximize multiple ecosystem services. The postdoc will coordinate team members (faculty, students, USACE partners, international partners), review literature, build a conceptual model, collect and manage spatial data, conduct analyses, build an initial version of a prioritization tool, and write reports/articles for various outlets.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Research/Literature Review/Project Coordination (30%): Coordinate with team members (faculty, students, USACE partners, international partners) and review literature and existing prioritization tool in order to determine approaches, data sources, and other criteria needed to accomplish project objectives.
• Research/Data Analysis (30%): Build a conceptual model, collect and manage spatial data, conduct analyses, build an initial version of a spatially-explicit prioritization tool for nature-based solutions pertaining to aquatic systems.
• Writing (25%): Identify opportunities to publish/share work through multiple avenues including (but not limited to) popular articles, technical notes, seminars/webinars, professional meetings, and peer reviewed journals.
• International Partnerships (15%): Coordinate with international partners at WWF and others. As the project’s international partnership coordinator, maintain lines of communication, evaluate collaborative opportunities, shared methods, seminars/webinars, internships opportunities, and other elements as determined by project leaders.

Relevant/Preferred Education, Experience, Licensure, Certification

Doctorate in a relevant discipline (e.g., natural resource management, environmental engineering, hydrology, fisheries/wildlife) with expertise in geospatial analysis, particularly as it relates to support of conservation decision-making or the identification and prioritization of landscape elements for conservation, management, or engineering actions. Candidates will demonstrate and be committed to thriving in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment and conceptualize, implement, and write high quality/high impact interdisciplinary environmental conservation research products.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and/or Competencies

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in geospatial analysis, spatial data management, and a working knowledge of coding geospatial operations (in R, Python, Julia, or other). Strong writing skills are essential. Understand and synthesize knowledge across disciplines (e.g., ecology, engineering, social science, policy).