NASA Postdoctoral Program - Forested Aboveground Biomass from Mechanistic and Statistical Analyses of Structural Remote-Sensing Data

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 opportunity focuses on remotely sensed estimates of aboveground biomass (AGB) using interferometric SAR and lidar data. The postdoc will develop algorithms for estimating AGB from tomoSAR and lidar profiles, working with data from boreal forests in Saskatchewan, Canada and tropical forests in Brazil. The project involves both mechanistic analyses (based on biophysical descriptions of forest vegetation) and statistical analyses including supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches. The postdoc will gain exposure to multiple methods of AGB estimation from remotely sensed forest structure and focus on one or two approaches for publication concerning the technology and/or science of the remotely-sensed regions.