Research and Development of High-resolution Satellite-based Data Products in Support of POWER program

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.

Description

NASA's POWER (Prediction Of Worldwide renewable Energy Resources) Project provides customized data parameters from NASA's CERES (Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System) mission, GEWEX Surface Radiative Budget project and the GMAO (Global Modeling and Assimilation Office) atmospheric reanalysis assimilation projects for the renewable energy including solar, sustainable building/architecture, and agricultural societal benefit areas. To provide trusted data for decision making, basic and applied research is carried out which requires continuous innovation in improving the accuracies of existing datasets and in developing new datasets relevant to the user communities.

Responsibilities

• Applying innovative methods to satellite (e.g. CERES Cloud products, TEMPO) and model datasets for developing higher resolution data products and their evaluation using surface measurements and/or satellite-based data products.
• Assessing the variability of these data products in space and time.
• Working with end users in identifying and developing new on-the-fly data products for solar, wind energy (i.e., like revising battery backup design parameters), and buildings/infrastructure decision support.
• Using modern technologies such as machine and deep learning methods, data fusion approaches, and cloud computing to contribute to the above work.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Atmospheric science, Earth Science, physics, data science or a related field by the date of the appointment.
• Experience in working with time-series data from multiple space-based and model observations (e.g., NASA CERES, MODIS, GPM, SMAP, MERRA, CMIP etc).
• Statistical analyses.
• Machine and Deep learning methods.
• Advanced programming (e.g. Python, C, Cloud computing etc.).
• Additional expertise in any of the following is beneficial:
• Atmospheric Radiative Transfer
• High performance computing

Qualifications

• 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

Skills

• Experience in utilizing satellite and/or modeling datasets mentioned above.
• Advanced programming skills (e.g. Python, C, Cloud computing etc.).

Benefits

• Opportunities exist for applying these technologies for algorithm optimization to contribute to the above work.

Pay

• Salary range: $65,000 - $75,000 per year.

Schedule

• One- to three-year fellowship.

Contact Information

For questions about this opportunity, please email npp@orau.org.