[ES_JOBS_NET] PhD position: remote sensing and valuation of lake water quality in the United States (Boston University, US-EPA, NASA)

[Christoph Nolte]

The Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University (BU) is
offering a funded PhD position for a student interested in the *remote
sensing and valuation of lake water quality* in the United States under the
joint supervision of Christoph Nolte
<https://www.bu.edu/earth/profiles/christoph-nolte/> and Cédric Fichot
<https://www.bu.edu/earth/profiles/cedric-g-fichot/>.

The PhD student will join a research project projected to be funded
under NASA's
Water Resources Applications
<https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/what-we-do/water-resources> program in
collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA)'s National
Center for Environmental Economics
<https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics>, the Blackwood Program in
Real Estate <https://realestate.vt.edu/> at Virginia Tech, and BU's Center
for Remote Sensing <https://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/>. The project
develops the prototype of "LakeSense": a system to track lake water quality
from space using aquatic remote sensing techniques. The goal of LakeSense
is to improve the representation of lake water quality benefits in US-EPA's
decision support tools for national and state-level regulatory analyses.

This position will be particularly rewarding for a student with research
interests in aquatic remote sensing, environmental valuation, or both, and
strong quantitative skills. The student will join a vibrant,
interdisciplinary PhD program at BU's Department of Earth and Environment
<https://www.bu.edu/earth/> with strengths in remote sensing,
biogeosciences, and social sciences, among others. The department offers a
five-year funding guarantee for all accepted PhD students.

Research tasks will be determined jointly by the student and the advisors
and include:

   - The development of a data pipeline for the recovery of lake water
   quality indicators from Sentinel 2A/B and Landsat 8/9 data using aquatic
   atmospheric correction.
   - The calibration and validation of remotely sensed lake water quality
   indicators against in-situ data for a national sample and two pilot regions
   (Midwest and Southeast).
   - An assessment of the extent to which remotely sensed lake water
   quality indicators permit the estimation of lake water benefits, using the
   example of hedonic valuation (i.e., estimating causal effects of lake water
   quality on property prices).

Required qualifications:

   - BSc or MSc degree in remote sensing, geo-informatics, environmental
   economics, computer science, statistics, spatial data science, or a closely
   related field.
   - Strong statistical, computing, and geo-processing skills in at least
   one open-source language – ideally R, Python, or both.
   - Strong analytical writing skills.

Desired qualifications:

   - Prior experience in any of the following will be an asset: aquatic
   remote sensing, hedonic valuation, parallelized computing, geo-processing
   in Python.

To apply for this position, please send an email to Christoph Nolte (
chrnolte at bu.edu) by March 18, 2022, with the words "NASA-WRA PhD position"
in the title. Please include:

   - A brief statement (1 page) that outlines (a) how you see your own
   research interests and career objectives align with the objectives of the
   project, and (b) how your training and work experiences have equipped you
   with the skills to support the envisaged work
   - A short CV (1 page) summarizing education, quantitative skills, and
   research experience
   - Unofficial transcripts
   - Contact information for three reference letter writers
   - Optional: any supplementary evidence of prior expertise in remote
   sensing, environmental valuation, geo-informatics, and/or parallelized data
   processing (e.g., publications, projects, GitHub).

The position will remain open until filled.

Boston University is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified
applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to
race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected
veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Christoph Nolte and Cédric Fichot
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