NASA Postdoctoral Program - Climate and megafires

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 research project proposes to study the King fire in California and emerging class of megafires changing the landscape of the Western US. The project will investigate whether these megafires represent a tipping point transition to a new fire regime that could reshape US landscapes. The research will utilize comprehensive observations including LiDAR for forest structure change, topography measurements, and imaging spectroscopy to study burn severity and post-fire ecological recovery. The project addresses NASA Applied Sciences goals to improve natural disaster forecasting, mitigation and response, while aiding understanding of natural processes that produce wildfire hazard and developing appropriate hazard mitigation approaches. This fellowship position is located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, under the advisorship of Dr. David Schimel.