Job Information
Washington State University Research Assistant Professor - Career in Pullman, Washington
Research Assistant Professor - Career
Available Title(s):
155-NN_FACULTY - Research Assistant Professor - Career
Business Title:
Research Assistant Professor - Career
Employee Type:
Faculty (+) (Fixed Term)
Time Type:
Full time
Position Term:
12 Month
Position Details:
Summary of Duties:
The incumbent will work with the USDA-ARS Northwest Sustainable Agroecosystems Research Unit in Pullman, Washington. The incumbent will use cropping system models to provide climate-informed decision making for inland PNW (iPNW) cropping systems.
The incumbent will be a USDA Northwest Climate Hub Fellow supporting the Climate Hub's mission through its three work areas: science & synthesis, technology & support, and outreach & training.
Activities will include:
• Further developing the Flex Cropping model (www.cafltar.org/tools/flex-cropping) to make predictions based on late-summer weather and soil moisture data of spring crop yields the following year.
• Employing eddy covariance, soil flux chamber, and soil carbon datasets from the Cook Agronomy Farm Long-Term Agro-ecosystem Research (LTAR) site to evaluate greenhouse gas (GHG) calculators for the inland PNW (iPNW) region, including COMET-Farm and OFoot (http://www.cafltar.org/tools/ofoot//).
• Simulating impacts of tillage practices and alternative cropping systems on water use efficiency, nutrient use efficiency, and GHG emissions for the dryland iPNW.
• Developing soil acidity model components to guide interventions to address soil acidification in the iPNW.
• Synthesizing and presenting recent weather data and projected down-scaled climate predictions to aid decisions related to field operations, crop growth, and insurance claims.
The incumbent will participate as a team member in producer workshops and listening sessions. They will present existing tools, such as the Flex Cropping tool and OFoot GHG Calculator, to solicit user feedback and guide further tool development. The incumbent will improve cropping system model corroboration and calibration including the use of CropSyst, which provides the foundation for the Flex Cropping and OFoot tools. The incumbent will incorporate external data sources for farming operations, soil properties, weather and employ statistical methods to evaluate and improve model performance.
The incumbent will also help to train a new generation of cropping system modelers. They will actively collaborate with WSU faculty to provide cropping system modeling expertise, including the CropSyst model. The incumbent will provide graduate student mentorship and teach guest lectures or a course on plant-soil modeling for the Dept of Crops and Soil Science.
Required Qualifications:
• Ph.D. in Biological Systems Engineering, Crop Modeling, Soil Science, Meteorology, or a related field, and relevant professional research experience.
• Proficiency with coding, statistical modeling, and experience manipulating large datasets.
• Experience operating a cropping system model, synthesizing biogeochemical datasets, data management, and analyzing meteorological datasets.
• Experience in oral and written communication for both scientific and non-research audiences.
Preferred Qualifications:
• Experience using CropSyst
• At least 3 years of post-doctoral experience.
• Experience in gr