Postdoctoral Fellow

Pūhanga Metarahi me te Rawa Taiao | Civil and Natural Resources Engineering
Located in Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand

• Full-time 37.5 hours per week (1.0 FTE)
• Fixed term position until 31 May 2026 (Commitment to the position until the end date is strongly preferred)
• Appointable salary $84,500 

Kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā!

He hiahia, he pūkenga nōu ki te mahi a te Postdoctoral Fellow - Wildfire risk and Resilience Engineering? Nāia te pōwhiri nā Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha kia tono mai i te tūranga nei.

Āu Mahi | What You Will Do
We are offering an exciting externally funded opportunity for a postdoctoral fellow in the area of wildfire risk and resilience engineering. More specifically, you will be involved in the EU-Horizon project "Minority Report: Mitigating environmental disruptive events using people-centric predictive digital technologies to improve disaster and climate resilience". In this project, you will focus on the spatial and temporal modelling of wildfires around cities (Wildland Urban Interface) to assess wildfire impact, and simulations of people/traffic evacuation, in order to inform and test mitigation strategies and evacuation plans. This work will link with the broader risk management to improve climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and disaster resilience (floods, earthquakes, landslides, etc.). You are also expected to lead research papers resulting from the investigations. As part of your research, you are expected to use state-of-the-art modelling tools to conduct thorough wildfire and evacuation risk assessment for a city in New Zealand (Wellington). You will develop innovative methodologies to map wildfire exposure to infrastructure and integrate pedestrian and traffic evacuation as part of the analyses.

The research team is multi-institutional and you will be working with leaders internationally recognised in their field for making a truly positive impact on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The position offers many continuous professional development opportunities.

For more information about this project and the team please contact Andres Valencia ([email protected]) or Pete Thompson ([email protected]).

Mōu | Who You Are
You will have a PhD in wildfire spread and impact simulation, traffic/evacuation modelling or a related discipline. Strong modelling with preferably GIS experience required. Interest in and knowledge of wildfires and evacuation is ideal.

Ideally, you will:

• Be experienced with wildfire and/or evacuation simulation models;
• Have spatial analysis (e.g. using GIS) and time series analysis skills;
• Have programming experience (e.g. R, Python, C++)
• Have published as lead author a journal paper(s) in a Tier 1 journal
• Be seeking a research/academic career
• Be available to start in 2024

Strong computer literacy and numeric skills, risk assessment experience and knowledge, statistical analysis software, and coding skills would be an advantage.

Mahi Ngātahi | Who You Will Work With
The role of the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering (CNRE) is to remain at the forefront of research and technology and preserve our strong international reputation for high quality teaching.

We aim to constantly develop our alumni and industry partnerships, to provide students with the highest level of training, and to expand the scope of our research expertise by attracting and retaining highly-skilled academic and support staff.

For more about the Department, please visit: https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/engineering/schools/cnre/

Please take a virtual tour of our Engineering facilities.

Ngā Painga o UC | Why UC
Tangata Tū, Tangata Ora - Engaged, Empowered, Making a Difference.

The University of Canterbury is committed to accessible higher education, service to community and the encouragement of talent without barriers of distance, wealth, class, gender or ethnicity. The University explicitly aims to produce graduates and support staff who are engaged with their communities, empowered to act for good and determined to make a difference in the world.

What we offer

• Flexible working arrangements
• Supportive working environment
• Generous annual leave provisions and competitive salary
• Professional development opportunities
• A unique working environment in a beautiful campus with access to UC facilities such as the recreation centre and Staff club at discounted rates plus onsite café's and eateries, and more

For more information, please visit: http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/joinus

For more information about Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, please visit www.canterbury.ac.nz

The closing date for this position is: 30 April 2024 (midnight, NZ time)
Applications will be reviewed after the close date.

Pēhea te tono mai | How You Apply
Applications for this position must be submitted on our careers websit e and should include a cover letter and resume.  Please note, we do not accept applications by email, however we are happy to answer your queries in relation to the application process, please forward these to [email protected]  

For further information specifically about the role, please contact: [email protected] to discuss the opportunities associated with this position.

Please Note: Applications for Postdoctoral Fellow positions will be considered from candidates who are working towards or nearing completion of a relevant Doctoral qualification. The title of Postdoctoral Fellow will be applied upon successful completion of the Doctoral degree.  Prior to the qualification being awarded the, title of Research Associate will be given, and salary will reflect the Research Associate scale.

Appointable salary for a Post Doctoral Fellow will be $84,500 (pa)

Please note: the minimum AEWV salary amount increased from $29.66 to $31.61 on 1 February 2024.

For overseas applicants, please visit Immigration New Zealand website or the New Zealand Government's official Covid-19 website , to review the latest health and visa requirements for visiting and working in New Zealand. 

Job Details

Reference #	19990
Posted on	03 Apr 2024
Closes on	30 Apr 2024 23:55
Location(s)	Christchurch
Expertise	Engineering
Job level(s)	Entry/Graduate, Experienced
Work type(s)	Fixed term full-time
More details (document)	PD Postdoc fellow Minority Report Horizon Europe April 2024.pdf
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