Python Job: Researcher

We are looking for a creative and collaborative Geospatial Researcher to join our Earth Observations team, where you will be working on a variety of major Scottish Government, NERC and Horizon Europe-funded research projects to understand how land management and climate change impact on carbon-rich landscapes and the contribution that land-based solutions may bring to the climate emergency. For the next 5 years, you will primarily work with our top-class peatland team, by developing modelling solutions to understand peatland condition through the use of Earth Observations.

You will be an integral part of the Geoinformatics Group of approximately 20 staff within the Department of Information and Computational Sciences and will develop collaborations with other research teams across the Institute, Europe and around the globe. This will be a key role within the Department and you will contribute to, and steer, major scientific analyses and publications, and have opportunities to develop and shape proposals for future research.

The post holder will be expected to contribute to a portfolio of research in the ICS Department, some of it within the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme which commenced in April this year. As such, the post holder will have the opportunity and will be actively encouraged to develop their own scientific solutions to a range of research challenges and deliverables within this Programme, under the line management of Dr Alessandro Gimona.

Duties:
Use of Google Earth Engine to implement spatially explicit models incorporating remote sensing and other spatial datasets.

Engagement with soil, land use and natural capital experts (biophysical and socioeconomic) to develop model implementations for scientific and non-scientific users.

Develop national and continental scale Earth Observation-based modelling workflows to assess the condition of carbon-rich landscapes and work with other modelling teams (e.g. GHG fluxes, land surface modellers) to understand the contribution of such landscapes to national carbon budgets

Implement and integrate models relating to land use, soils and natural capital within web-capable software platforms.

Support the use of these spatially explicit models in soil, land use and natural capital research and stakeholder engagement.

Communicate research findings via high impact journal publications, at international conferences and via social media platforms

Shape the future of Earth Observations research within the Institute through new funding proposals

Education/experience/skills:
A PhD in a relevant subject area (GIS, environment, remote sensing)

An interest in machine learning and remote sensing/Earth Observation

Strong team working skills

Ability to work independently

Ability to design and undertake research with limited supervision

Potential to publish high quality, peer-reviewed journal articles

Aligned with the ethos of the ICS Department and the James Hutton Institute

Essential criteria:
Excellent Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud Services skills

Candidates must be highly proficient in a major GIS (either QGIS or Arc), with the usual core GIS and GIS-data manipulation skills/experience

Data Science and machine learning experience

Knowledge/experience of environmental and satellite data (preferably including soils/peat related datasets)

A very strong knowledge of GIS programming in Python with GDAL

Experience and skills in the use of Python

Experience of HPC and Big Data processing (including the development of large processing pipelines)

Candidates must be experienced with Linux environments

Desirable criteria:
Database skills (particularly PostgreSQL with PostGIS)

Experience working with docker containers

JavaScript skills

Experience of Jupyter Notebooks

Some experience of R

Experience of processing on GPUs is very desirable to compliment the HPC/Big Data processing

If you have any queries, please contact Dr Matt Aitkenhead ().

Benefits Offered

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) - A confidential service available to support employees and their families with work or personal problems. Providing access to professional counsellors, psychologists, and work-life consultants available to help and support individuals in tackling all types of problems.

Annual Leave – Generous entitlement up to 40.5 days a year, with carry over possible and guaranteed time-off for Christmas.

Pension - Employer Contribution of 15% in a Personal Pension Plan and employee contribution flexibility.

Self-managed hours and Flexible Working – option to manage and spread your working time in line with organisational needs to create a healthy work life balance.

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: £31,995.00 per year