About Flinders

Our bold vision, captured in our Strategic Plan: making a Difference: The 2025 Agenda, is to be internationally recognised as a world leader in research, an innovator in contemporary education, and the source of Australia’s most enterprising graduates.

To realise this ambition, we recently made a significant organisation change to a six College structure with a professional staff and services alignment.

We recognise the key to our success is exceptional people and we’re seeking an outstanding individual to join the team of our transformed university.

Employment Type:

Fixed Term (Fixed Term)

Position Summary

Fixed-term, full-time available for 3 years

Compensation Grade:
Research Academic Level A

Salary Range:
$76,955 - $93,259

The Research Associate in Hydrogeology will undertake research in Ecology, Evolution and Environment under the direction of the Strategic Professor in Hydrogeology; Okke Batelaan (Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering) and Dr Luk Peeters (CSIRO). In working with the lead researchers and their teams, the incumbent will assist in leading the design and execution of the research project.

Research Project

A regional water table map does not only provide an estimate of thickness of the unsaturated zone, it embeds an enormous amount of information on the groundwater system, such as flowpaths, recharge areas and discharge locations. Creating a hydrogeological sound water table map is however still challenging as scarce and unevenly distributed observations need to be reconciled with our understanding of the groundwater flow system.

Flinders University and CSIRO’s Deep Earth Imaging Future Science Platform are therefore seeking a post-doctoral research fellow with a background in hydrogeology to help develop, test and implement a workflow for regional water table mapping. The research project will focus on developing a regional conceptualisation of the groundwater flow system and use that understanding to integrate point measurement (e.g. bores), local scale proxies (e.g. hydrogeophysics) and regional scale proxies (e.g. remote sensing).

The incumbent will be based at CSIRO’s Waite Campus (80%) and Flinders University Bedford Park Campus (20%). The incumbent may assist in leading students involved in the research Project, according to the University’s policies, practices and standards.

Key Position Responsibilities

The Research Associate in Hydrogeology is accountable for:

• Assisting in leading the Project by collaborating with the Project Research Team to successfully deliver project milestones and Key Performance Indicators.
• Contribute to the planning and execution of research by offering new ideas, reviewing relevant literature and other sources of information, actively participating in the production of data and attending seminars, meetings and conferences.
• Contributing to the coordinating, planning and executing the project tasks required to collaborate with industry partners.
• Contributing to ethical, high quality and innovative research and evaluation through activities such as scholarship, quality publication, external grant acquisition and presentations that aligns with the College areas of research strength and focus.
• Assisting principal supervisors with supervision of postgraduate students.
• Establishing and maintaining collaborations within the University, and at State, national and international levels in order to improve research outputs, patents and publications.
• Some out of hours work (including weekends) as well as rural SA, interstate and overseas travel, may be required.
• Any other responsibilities in line with the level of the position as assigned by the Supervisor and/or the University.

Key Position Capabilities

• Completion of a PhD in Hydrogeology or a related discipline and no more than three years of relevant postdoctoral research experience or a PhD in Hydrogeology or related discipline submitted at the time of commencement.
• Demonstrated experience in developing hydrogeological conceptual models and translating them into numerical models (essential)
• Demonstrated experience in hydrogeophysics, remote sensing, geostatistics & data assimilation, scientific computing and programming (desirable)
• Demonstrated emerging research experience in terms of publications and presentations at a national and/or international level in a relevant field.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver project targets on time.
• Demonstrated well-developed interpersonal skills and the capacity to collaborate and engage with diverse stakeholders and industry partners.
• Demonstrated ability to critically review the literature in relevant fields.
• Demonstrated ability to undertake collaborative research and establish and maintain effective relationships with staff and industry.
• Demonstrated excellent oral and written communication skills in an academic environment.

For application enquiries please contact: Professor Okke Batelaan

Information for Applicants: You are required to provide a suitability statement of no more than three pages, addressing the key capabilities of the position as outlined above. In addition, you are required to upload your CV.

A valid National Police Certificate which is satisfactory to the University will also be required before the successful applicant can commence in this position.

We are seeking to increase the diversity to improve equal opportunity outcomes for employees, and therefore we encourage female applicants, people with a disability and/or from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders descent to apply.

Please note, late applications and applications sent via agencies will not be accepted.

Applications to be submitted before:

23 Nov 2020