Post Doctoral Research Associate - Agricultural Remote Sensing

Texas Tech University • Lubbock, TX

6d • Onsite

About The Position

The Davis College Water Center at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX) invites applications for a Post Doc position focused on developing practical digital tools for agricultural water management. The successful candidate will combine knowledge of agriculture and remote sensing with strong coding skills to transform data from field sensors, weather stations, satellites, and crop models into applications that farmers can use to support irrigation and crop-management decisions. This position offers an opportunity to connect ongoing field and remote-sensing research with farmer-ready products. The Post Doc will work with researchers, extension personnel, producers, and software collaborators to identify user needs; develop, test, and deploy web, mobile, or dashboard applications; and validate recommendations under real farming conditions. The candidate will also contribute to scientific publications, outreach, proposals, and shared project activities.

Requirements

• PhD in area of project specialization.
• Knowledge of modern research practices, the methods, resources, and standards thereof.
• Ability to organize work effectively, conceptualize and prioritize objectives and exercise independent judgment based on an understanding of organizational policies and activities.
• Ability to integrate resources, policies, and information for the determination of procedures, solutions and other outcomes.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective work relationships with other employees and the public.
• Ability to plan and allocate the workload of employees, providing direct training and supervision as needed.
• Candidates must successfully complete a comprehensive background check prior to employment.
• Employees are required to comply with all applicable state and federal regulations related to the protection of critical infrastructure.
• Ongoing employment is dependent upon maintaining eligibility for access and successfully passing periodic security and compliance reviews.

Nice To Haves

• Strong coding skills

Responsibilities

• Work with farmers, crop consultants, and researchers to identify priority management decisions and define requirements for useful, accessible, and scientifically reliable decision-support applications.
• Develop reproducible data pipelines and application progrzamming interfaces that integrate soil-moisture sensors, weather and field observations, satellite products, and crop or hydrologic model outputs.
• Calibrate, validate, and apply DSSAT crop models using field observations, soil and weather data, irrigation records, crop-management information, and historical datasets from ongoing research and producer-field projects.
• Integrate DSSAT simulations with satellite and ground-sensor data to assess crop growth, phenology, soil-water dynamics, evapotranspiration, irrigation requirements, biomass, yield, and crop water productivity.
• Apply remote sensing, geospatial analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to map soil moisture, estimate irrigation requirements, classify crops, detect phenology, monitor agricultural drought, and predict biomass or yield.
• Connect application development with ongoing small-plot and producer-field research; collect ground-reference data and evaluate model accuracy, uncertainty, limitations, and agronomic usefulness across crops, soils, irrigation systems, and seasons.
• Conduct usability testing with farmers and other intended users and improve maps, alerts, interfaces, and recommendations based on user feedback and documented field performance.
• Use sound software practices, including version control, code review, automated testing, data-quality checks, privacy safeguards, documentation, and maintainable deployment.
• Prepare peer-reviewed publications, project reports, proposals, training materials, and outreach demonstrations.
• Performs specialized Post Doctoral work in the planning, conducting and/or supervision of original research.
• Responsible for participating in a research project associated with PhD studies and the interpretation of the results of publication.
• May supervise research and student assistants.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree