Advancing Terrestrial Ecology, Wildfire Fuel Monitoring, or Agricultural Applications, or Associated Activities through VSWIR Imaging Spectroscopy

About the role

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.

Research Focus

• Mapping canopy biochemistry (e.g., nitrogen, LMA, chlorophyll, and non-photosynthetic vegetation) to understand ecosystem response to climate stressors.
• Quantifying crop physiological status, nutrient use efficiency, or water stress to enhance food security models.
• Investigating the fluxes of carbon and nutrients at the land-atmosphere interface or mapping soil mineralogy and organic matter content.

Data and Methodology

• Leverage NASA’s imaging spectroscopy archives and current activities.
• Interest in using AVIRIS Program Data and EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation).
• Activities aimed at advancing atmospheric correction, dimensionality reduction, or machine learning approaches for handling big data.
• Leveraging multi-mission datasets including PACE, NISAR, ECOSTRESS, GEDI, etc.

Field of Science

Earth Science

Advisors

Dana Chadwick
dana.chadwick@jpl.nasa.gov
(626) 344-6830

Eligibility

• 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.

Qualifications

• A PhD in remote sensing, ecology, agronomy, geography or other relevant field.
• Proficiency in Python, R, or similar environments for handling large-scale imaging spectroscopy/hyperspectral datasets.
• Publishing in peer-reviewed journals and contributing to the broader NASA Earth Science community's preparation for the next generation of orbital imaging spectrometers.