Research Assistant or Research Officer

Job Description

Salary 30,046 to 33,797 or 34,804 to 40,322 per annum together with USS pension benefitsLocation Singleton CampusContractThis is a fixed term position until 31/12/2023 (with potential for extension)Applications are invited for the post of Research Assistant/Research Officer in Physical Geography, Department of Geography in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. We are seeking to appoint a researcher on an ongoing NERC funded research project Advancing 3D Fuel Mapping for Wildfire Behaviour and Risk Mitigation Modelling. The project is led by Prof. Stefan Doerr at Swansea University and carried out in collaboration with the US Forest Service (USA), Forest Research (UK) and Natural Resources Wales (UK). The project aims to (i) develop new algorithms to obtain accurate 3D fuel cartography in forest plots using terrestrial point clouds, (ii) generate an operative workflow to integrate the 3D fuel cartography into physics-based fire behaviour models, (iii) implement a methodology to create virtual forest scenarios simulating different forest treatments from real data, and (iv) disseminate the project outcomes to both the scientific community and end-users. The successful applicant will join Swansea Universitys award winning . The centres mission is to provide society with the knowledge necessary to predict, mitigate and adapt to the increasing threat of wildfires both in the UK and globally. The post will be based in the Geography Department at the Singleton Park campus, close to the Gower Peninsula, UKs first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Department has been ranked joint 8th in the UK for research impact and 11th in the UK for research environment in REF 2014. Swansea University is a research-intensive university ranked 24th in the UK (Guardian University Guide 2021) and features in the top 300 elite institutions globally (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021). The appointed researcher will support the second and applied phase of this project, lasting until at least until 31. Dec. 2023. This phase will focus specifically on the optimisation of the current versions of the algorithms already developed within the project and their implementation into R and Python scripts/packages that can be published in public repositories. Specific duties involve (i) optimising algorithms already developed within the project, (ii) implementing them in R and Python libraries/scripts/packages, (iii) contributing to the inclusion of 3D fuel cartography into existing fire behaviour models and (iv) contributing to the application of the fuel and fire behaviour models to different virtual treatment scenarios. Applicants are expected to have a degree or PhD in a relevant discipline (e.g. Geography, Computer Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, Geomatics, Forestry, Environmental Sciences) and expertise in programming/coding (R and Python). Experience relevant to the use of terrestrial point clouds, forest inventory and fire behaviour models, as well as in the dissemination of scientific work are beneficial.

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