NASA Postdoctoral Program - Integrating Satellite Remote Sensing with a Demographic Dynamic Global Vegetation Model to Advance Carbon Cycle Science

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 representing the vertical and horizontal spatial heterogeneity and community structure of vegetation canopies in dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) that couple with climate models. The research incorporates satellite lidar data to quantify observed vertical canopy structure and uses data from MODIS, GEDI, and other Earth observing missions. Postdoctoral fellows are invited to propose research incorporating lidar observations of vegetation at the site, regional and/or global scales, including studies on radiative transfer and albedo, plant allometry to constrain canopy structure, development of new satellite lidar data products, and coupled climate-carbon cycle simulation experiments. The position is located at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and requires experience with mathematical modeling, computer programming, and analyzing field and remote sensing datasets.