Postdoc (m/f/d)

The climate needs bright minds. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. It is one of the world's leading research institutions in its field and offers natural and social scientists from around the world an inspiring environment for excellent interdisciplinary research.

Within the Horizon2020 Framework Programme, the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research and its Working Group ‘Ecosystems in Transition’ is offering a

Postdoc position for Fire Regime and Vegetation modeling (m/f/d)

 (Position number: 45-2021-Postdoc FirEUrisk)

The position is planned to start 01.10.2021 and is funded for 3 years, remuneration is in accordance with the German public tariff scheme (TV-L Brandenburg), salary group E13. The position is full-time with a weekly working time of 40 hours per week. The position can be filled on a part-time basis.

The H2020 Project FirEUrisk investigates changes of fire regimes within Europe under future climate- and land-use change. Wildfire threats are increasing and getting more extreme across Europe and worldwide. The project work will assess adaptation strategies designed to be implemented in an integrated European fire management program. These tasks require improvement of established fire- and vegetation models by building hybrid models based on machine-learning techniques using Remote Sensing Data extensively. This will happen in close collaboration with the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing of the TU in Dresden and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt/Main.

Key responsibilities:

• research on hybrid models for fire- and vegetation modeling, with the aid of Remote Sensing Data
• advancement of scenario-based simulation experiments to assess climate- and landuse-change in Europe
• assessing adaptation strategies for implementation in a climate-resilient European fire management program
• application of machine learning methods to build up and implement hybrid models into the fire-vegetation model LPJmL-SPITFIRE
• analysing changes of projected fire regimes and fire ecology
• analysis and communication of results with FirEUrisk partners

Requirements:

• PhD degree in Environmental physics and –modelling, Computer science, Mathematics, or a related field in climate-impact science
• background in biology or environmental science
• expertise in analysing extensive amounts of remote sensing-, climate-, fire- and vegetation data with R and/or Python
• practical experiences with Linux/Unix, High-Performance-Computing, Git, C and Shell-Skripts
• experience in optimization algorithms or machine learning
• experience with large-scale vegetation- and fire modeling is recommended

We expect:

• the ability to work independently and at your own initiative
• applying a methodical and systematic approach in the given tasks
• structured and goal-oriented thinking
• capacity to familiarise yourself quickly with new topics
• capacity for teamwork within an inter-cultural context
• a high level of competence in oral and written English with respect to scientific writing and presentation skills
• willingness to travel for work (project meetings, workshops etc.)

We offer:

• the opportunity to work with interesting people in a dynamic environment on important research questions, imbedded in a large consortium with numerous international partners
• a stimulating working environment in one of the world’s leading climate-change research institutes and opportunities for cooperation with PIK’s national and international network of leading climate change, fire and vegetation ecology scientists
• competitive remuneration with a collective pay scheme and associated benefits

PIK seeks to increase the share of women in scientific positions and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. In cases of equal qualification and within the given legal scope, women will be given preference. Applications by persons with a migration background are expressly encouraged. Applications of disabled persons with equal qualifications will be regarded favourably. PIK also encourages applications by parents returning from parental leave.

Your full application includes a letter of motivation with a detailed description of how you plan to address the key responsibilities in the project. Please send your full application as a single PDF document by 22.08.2021 at the latest, directly using our application form .The size of the file should not exceed 15 MB.

For further information or to discuss the position please contact Dr. Kirsten Thonicke kirsten.thonicke(at)pik-potsdam.de . For further informatione please visit www.pik-potsdam.de/en .