Jobs:Job-00721

From CSDMS
Two postdoc positions in Flood Modeling and Remote Sensing
University of Alabama, Alabama, United States
Start reviewing process: 30 September 2022


Two Post-Doctoral positions are available at the University of Alabama (UA) Department of Geography as part of a research project funded under the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology (CIROH). CIROH is a newly established National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cooperative institute with UA and a consortium of 28 academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and government and industry partners (https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/university-of-alabama-to-lead-noaa-institute-to-advance-water-and-flood-prediction). CIROH’s research are tightly linked to research to operation activities at the NOAA National Water Center, co-located on the UA campus in Tuscaloosa. This opportunity is under the CIROH Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) project, led by Drs. Sagy Cohen and Hongxing Liu. The FIM project is focused on the development of novel techniques and an improved understanding of channel, floodplain, and urban hydraulic characteristics and their impact on flood inundation predictions. The post-doctoral scholars will be affiliated with Dr. Cohen’s Surface Dynamics Modeling Laboratory (SDML; https://sdml.ua.edu/) and Dr. Liu’s Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (ERSL; https://rsl.ua.edu/).


Position 1. Flood Inundation Modeling: We seek an individual with a PhD in Geography, Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, or a related field with a strong interest in numerical modeling and geospatial analysis. This individual will contribute to the project’s goals of: (1) developing novel capabilities of representing the hydraulic characteristics (e.g. channel morphology, roughness) of rivers, floodplains, and urban environments; (2) developing a framework for large-scale hydraulic flood modeling across the United States. These research activities will be led by Dr. Cohen and the individual is expected to assist in day-to-day lab operations, including mentoring graduate and undergraduate students.

Position 2. Flood Remote Sensing: We seek an individual with a PhD in Geography, Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, or a related field with a strong interest in remote sensing, geospatial analysis, and web-GIS. This individual will contribute to the project’s goals of: (1) developing a large repository of flood inundation maps based on remote sensing and metadata analyses; (2) developing novel techniques for extracting hydraulic characteristics of rivers, floodplains, and urban environments. These research activities will be led by Dr. Liu and the individual is expected to assist in day-to-day lab operations, including mentoring graduate and undergraduate students.

The positions are available for 2 years (with the possibility of an additional year) of funding at $60-65k/yr (pending experience/qualifications) with health and retirement benefits.

To express interest in the positions, please contact Dr. Cohen (sagy.cohen@ua.edu) and Dr. Liu (Hongxing.Liu@ua.edu) with (a) complete curriculum vitae; (b) a brief statement on research interest; (c) a sample of relevant papers published as first-author, and (d) names and contact details of three references. Successful candidates will be referred to the university job application webpage.

Of interest for:
  • Terrestrial Working Group
  • Coastal Working Group
  • Hydrology Focus Research Group
  • Coastal Vulnerability Initiative
  • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Initiative
  • Modeling Platform Interoperability Initiative
  • River Network Modeling Initiative