USDA-ARS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Remote Sensing of Agroecosystems with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS)

*Applications are reviewed on a rolling-basis.

ARS Office/Lab and Location: A research opportunity is currently available with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), located in Tifton, Georgia.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific in-house research agency with a mission to find solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day from field to table. ARS will deliver cutting-edge, scientific tools and innovative solutions for American farmers, producers, industry, and communities to support the nourishment and well-being of all people; sustain our nation’s agroecosystems and natural resources; and ensure the economic competitiveness and excellence of our agriculture. The vision of the agency is to provide global leadership in agricultural discoveries through scientific excellence.

Research Project: The USDA-ARS Long-Term Agroecological Research Network offers research opportunities to motivated postdoctoral fellows interested in collaborating on agricultural-related problems at a range of spatial and temporal scales, from the genome to the continent, and sub-daily to evolutionary time scales. This collaborative multi-disciplinary project will build on the research of the LTAR Regionalization Project to develop tools and guidelines for deploying sensor networks and assessing completeness of observational datasets for monitoring spatially and temporally variable processes at local, regional, and national or international scales.

Under the guidance of a mentor, the participant will have the opportunity to gain experience with and learn about the challenges of sUAS data, focusing on the use of structural data from LiDAR and spectral data from multi- and hyperspectral sensors to augment and inform agroecosystem research. Training opportunities will be developed based on prior expertise in agricultural or quantitative fields. The participant will learn a range of computational skills needed to conduct complex analyses of remote sensing and other geospatial data in a cloud- and high-performance computing-based environments, including machine learning approaches, geostatistics, and spatio-temporal scaling at field, landscape, and regional scale, and will apply these skills to the characterization of scales and design of agricultural experiments relevant to ARS objectives and regional needs.

Learning Objectives: The participant will learn sUAS-borne hyperspectral and LiDAR sensor systems and HPC computing technologies, and analytical methodologies, and will help develop and learn about managing ARS protocols, resulting in a community of scientific practice on cloud-based drone data analysis and sharing. The participant will have the opportunity to collaborate with multiple USDA ARS scientists on sUAS focused projects, and to write collaborative scientific papers dealing with the use of sUAS data for local to regional agroecological analyses.

Mentor(s): The mentor for this opportunity is Alisa Coffin (alisa.coffin@usda.gov). If you have questions about the nature of the research, please contact the mentor(s).

Anticipated Appointment Start Date: November 18, 2024. Start date is flexible and will depend on a variety of factors.

Appointment Length: The appointment will initially be for one year, but may be renewed upon recommendation of ARS and is contingent on the availability of funds.

Level of Participation: The appointment is full time.

Participant Stipend: The participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience.

Citizenship Requirements: This opportunity is available to U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR) only.

ORISE Information: This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and ARS. Participants do not become employees of USDA, ARS, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. Health insurance can be obtained through ORISE.

Questions: Please visit our Program Website. After reading, if you have additional questions about the application process, please email ORISE.ARS.Southeast@orau.org and include the reference code for this opportunity.

Qualifications

The qualified candidate should be currently pursuing or have received a doctoral degree in the one of the relevant fields. Degree must have been received within the past two years, or anticipated to be received by 12/31/2024.

Preferred skills:

• Experience with modeling spatial data
• Experience with analysis of remotely sensed data
• Experience with sUAS, including automated flight data collection
• Current 14 CFR Part 107 sUAS pilot certification
• Proficiency in ArcGIS, Pix4D, Open Drone Map, or other sUAS data processing package for hyperspectral and LiDAR data
• Strong computational skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills

Eligibility Requirements

• Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
• Degree: Doctoral Degree received within the last 24 months or anticipated to be received by 12/31/2024 12:00:00 AM.