Postdoctoral Scholar

The Pennsylvania State University • University Park, FL

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Pennsylvania State University is seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher position in the field of computational land surface hydrology, with a focus on Foundation AI model pretraining and finetuning, geospatial data processing and physics-informed machine learning. Pending approval of the grant, the successful candidate will work on innovative research in hydrology, collaborating with Dr. Shen and other faculty members, while also participating in the development of research projects and providing support to graduate students. The postdoctoral scholar will combine foundation AI modeling and differentiable modeling (a genre of physics-informed machine learning) for hydrologic modeling to improve large-scale hydrologic forecast. The scholar will work with a large, interdisciplinary team on the next-generation land surface model. Especially, the scholar will integrate state-of-the-art AI and physics-informed AI techniques into an operational system. The contribution could bring benefits to society and reduce the damage of floods. This is a term position; length of the term will be discussed during the interview process. Continuation past the term length discussed will be based on university need, performance, and/or availability of funding.

Requirements

• Possess a Ph.D. in hydrology, civil engineering, environmental science, or a closely related field by the appointment start date.
• A strong background in numerical modeling and the application of computational methods to land surface hydrological problems.
• Research experience with a track record of published work in relevant scientific journals.
• Excellent communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency in programming languages, such as Python or Fortran.
• Solid understanding of the physical hydrologic cycle and large-scale geographic datasets.

Nice To Haves

• Prior experiences with Foundation AI model pretraining and finetuning, geospatial data processing and physics-informed machine learning are highly desired.
• Experiences with machine learning is a plus to the application.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement novel modeling techniques.
• Stay current with the latest developments and be willing to learn and adopt frontier methods.
• Collaborate with research team members to design, execute, and interpret research findings.
• Contribute to the development of high-quality research publications and presentations.
• Provide support to graduate students within the department.

Benefits

• Penn State provides a competitive benefits package for full-time employees designed to support both personal and professional well-being.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees