Cross-scale thermal remote sensing of biospheric function

ORAU; Greenbelt (MD); On-site; USD 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

ORAU is seeking a post-doctoral candidate for the NASA Postdoctoral Program in Greenbelt, Maryland. This role involves leading research in plant ecophysiology and thermal remote sensing, contributing to NASA’s missions in Earth science.

The ideal candidate will possess a Doctoral Degree and expertise in relevant fields, including programming skills in R and Python. This position promises opportunities for peer-reviewed publications and presentations at major scientific conferences.

Qualifications

• Curiosity and passion for systems approach in scientific understanding.
• Expertise in ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, remote sensing, and field ecology is desired.
• Experience in R, Python, and GitHub coding.

Responsibilities

• Lead and design research in plant ecophysiology and thermal remote sensing.
• Utilize spectroscopic techniques for key questions in water use and climate impacts.

Skills

Ecophysiology

Remote sensing

Biogeochemistry

Field ecology

Programming in R

Programming in Python

Code versioning with GitHub

Education

Doctoral Degree

Job description

Organization
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Reference Code
0325-NPP-NOV26-GSFC-EarthSci

Application Deadline
11/1/2026 6:00:59 PM Eastern Time Zone

Description

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.

Advances in thermal remote sensing are providing new insights into plant water use as well as impacts of heat and drought. Tiered monitoring and measurement approaches using in-situ, drone, aircraft and space-based retrievals of surface emissivity, temperature, and evapotranspiration cover a range of processes linked to leaf, canopy and landscape scales. NASA’s current and upcoming thermal missions like ECOSTRESS, SBG, and Landsat-Next enable further development of such a tiered approach, while also necessitating in-situ validation.

To understand plant water use and temperature limits across scales and biomes, and to better integrate tiered measurement systems with new multi-spectral thermal imaging missions, we are looking for a post-doctoral candidate with expertise in plant ecophysiology and thermal remote sensing. The candidate will be expected to lead and design research that utilizes a range of spectroscopic techniques to address key and cutting edge questions in plant to ecosystem water use and impacts of climate variability and trends.

Field of Science

Earth Science

Advisors

Shawn Serbin
[e-mail]
301-614-5947

Questions about this opportunity?

Please email [e-mail]

Qualifications

Qualifications include curiosity and a passion for systems approach toward developing a scientific understanding of the Earth system. Subject matter expertise in ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, remote sensing and field ecology are desired. Programming experience in R, Python or other similar computing languages, as well as experience in code versioning software such as GitHub. The position is expected to lead to peer-reviewed publications and presentations at major scientific conferences.

Point of Contact

Mikeala

Eligibility Requirements

• Citizenship: U.S. Citizen Only
• Degree: Doctoral Degree.