Ref: A2806
Senior Research Associate in Satellite Altimetry
Department: Lancaster Environment Centre
Salary: £34,804 - £40,322
Closing Date: 21 November 2019
Contract: Fixed Term

Job URL: http://hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=A2806

We are seeking to recruit a highly-motivated senior post-doctoral researcher, to work on the development of multi-decadal satellite altimetry records of Ice Sheet change. Long-term measurements of ice loss are essential for determining the impact of climate change on the remote polar regions, and to understand the associated contribution of ice sheets to sea level rise.

Joining the UK’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), and the new Centre of Excellence in Environmental Data Science (CEEDS) hosted at Lancaster, you will focus on developing new operational altimetry processing systems. As a part of the Copernicus Climate Change Services (C3S) and Fundamental Data Records for Altimetry (FDR4ALT) projects, you will work to (1) develop and run new operational altimetry systems designed to deliver multi-decadal ice sheet records, (2) develop new data products to be used by the European Space Agency (ESA) for measuring ice sheet change, and (3) exploit the new generation of high resolution satellite altimeters, including Sentinel-3 and ICESat-2, to monitor ice sheets.

This position offers the exciting opportunity to work with experts from CPOM, CEEDS, ESA and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) on two large, high-profile projects; C3S and FDR4ALT. As such, it provides an excellent opportunity for collaboration and career progression in the developing field of high resolution polar altimetry, with the potential to become a future leader in this domain.

For this post you will have a PhD or postdoctoral experience in satellite altimetry, geodesy, geophysics, computer science or software engineering. Independence, excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and the ability to work collaboratively and to deadlines is essential.

You will become a member of CPOM, which provides the UK with core strategic capability in polar satellite observation; measurements that are used to investigate ongoing changes across Earth’s polar regions. The centre receives long-term strategic funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and works in close partnership with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), as well as the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), and the UK Met Office. CPOM also collaborates closely with ESA on current satellite missions and future design concepts, including CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3.
Lancaster University has been named University of the Year 2018 and International University of the Year 2020, by The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide; it is in the top 10 UK Universities. The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) is the largest and most interdisciplinary department of the University. Within LEC, the glaciology group constitutes an ambitious and rapidly growing team of academics, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students, who specialise in using satellite observations and climate models to study Earth’s ice sheets.

CEEDS is a new initiative between LEC, Lancaster’s Data Science Institute and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, which aims to bring together Environmental and Data Scientists to tackle some of the most pressing environmental challenges facing society, and to accelerate the use of Data Science methods in Environmental Science. We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis. The department holds an Athena SWAN Bronze Award, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in Higher Education and research. 

This is full time post, anticipated to start in January 2020, or at a mutually agreed date, and finishing in June 2021. There is potential for a further 12 month extension to this position, subject to the award of a subsequent phase of project funding.

Informal enquiries are welcome, please contact Mal McMillan; m.mcmillan@lancaster.ac.uk 

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.