Investigating the relationship between snow and food security

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on snowmelt dominant regions where agriculture production is directly tied to runoff from snowmelt. The research will investigate how climate change is affecting socioecological food production systems and characterize the exacerbating and mitigating combined ecohydrologic processes that contribute to climate adapted or stressed food-water systems. The work will contribute to improving climate adapted socio-hydrologic systems at global and regional scales by collaborating with resources managers and other stakeholders, using modeling and observations of the terrestrial water cycle and its interactions with land surface processes. Possible observational and modeling work can include SWOT, GRACE, ECOSTRESS, or in situ stations, with modeling frameworks such as VIC/VIC-CropSyst, CLM, and/or LDAS.