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The Gough lab at Virginia Commonwealth University seeks a NASA-supported postdoctoral scholar with remote sensing expertise to join an interdisciplinary team investigating relationships between coastal wetland vegetation indices and ecosystem production, biodiversity, and habitat provisioning. The postdoc will engage partners from NASA, the Chesapeake Carbon Consortium, Ameriflux, The Nature Conservancy, and the environmental services industry, and support NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Gas Emissions Quantification (MAGEQ) and BlueFlux initiatives to model and scale wetland trace gas fluxes and quantify ecological co-benefits such as biodiversity. The postdoc will leverage data from NASA Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral, & Thermal airborne imager (G-LiHT), and UAS and terrestrial lidar platforms to characterize vegetation structural, compositional, and functional traits across mid-Atlantic coastal wetlands and to examine how remotely sensed vegetation traits relate to trace gas fluxes, biodiversity, and habitat provisioning.

The Gough lab is a collaborative team-oriented group, with projects investigating forest and wetland carbon cycling, vegetation structure-function interactions, ecological responses to disturbance, relationships between art and science, and the efficacy of nature-based solutions. In addition to leading the science activities described above, a postdoctoral scholar will mentor undergraduate and graduate student collaborators, engage private and public sector collaborators, and communicate project findings through peer-reviewed publications, technical and policy documents, and presentations at scientific meetings. Questions and inquiries are welcome.

Position requirements: A Ph.D. in ecology, earth science, environmental sciences or a related field.

Required qualifications: Experience with lidar, hyperspectral, and/or thermal remote sensing applications in ecology and earth science. Proficiency communicating science through peer-reviewed publications and presentations. Ability to work with large datasets and conduct analysis in R or Python. Enthusiasm for interdisciplinary, team-oriented science.

Preferred qualifications: Fundamental knowledge of wetland biogeochemistry, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, and plant ecology. Experience mentoring student researchers. Prior experience working with remotely sense vegetation indices.

Salary Range: Starting at $60,000

Benefits: All VCU employee types are eligible for a wide array of benefits to support you during your employment at VCU. Consult the benefits website for information on benefits eligibility according to employee type.

FLSA Exemption Status: Exempt

Hours per Week: 40

ORP Eligible: Yes

Contact Information:
Contact Name:  Chris Gough
Contact Email:  cmgough@vcu.edu