Job Description

Application is invited to work on a multiple-year interdisciplinary project entitled “Forest Restoration Digital Companion: A Social-Ecological-Technical Systems Approach”. The project, which collaborates across the fields of forest ecology, remote sensing, machine learning and spatial data science, will develop a suite of models and digital tools consolidated into a single platform to assist forest restoration work end-to-end in forecasting restoration outcomes, site prioritization, recommending actions and logistics, and monitoring for adaptive feedback. The project aims to improve our understanding of forest regeneration in Singapore and the efficacy of restoration approaches in achieving carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation targets. 

The project is a collaboration among the Department of Biological Sciences at National University of Singapore (NUS), the Department of Geography, NUS, the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and the Asian School of the Environment, NTU. Successful candidates should be scientific-driven, able to perform field work, and manage the project tasks and outputs independently. In addition to the respective research scope described below, the position will work collaboratively with other project team members to integrate results from the project tasks to develop a digital tool GUI web-hosted on GPU server, with a companion app for forecasting and reporting forest recovery status.

This full-time Research Associate (with Master’s degree) position will ideally also be enrolled as a part-time PhD student at the NUS Department of Geography, working with A/P Wang Yi-Chen and Dr. Chua Siew Chin on the geospatial related tasks of the project. The RA is required to reconstruct land use histories and vegetation cover using GIS and remote sensing, quantify forest patch connectivity, incorporate stakeholder’s views to perform multi-criteria decision analysis, as well as contribute to modelling forest growth and ecological processes at stand to landscape scales. 

Please submit the following  

• Curriculum vitae 
• 2-page research statement and career goals 
• Contacts of three referees (one letter must be from Master advisor) 

Application deadline is 1 May 2022 in order to be considered for the part time PhD enrolment. 

Interested applicants should refer to the Geography website (https://fass.nus.edu.sg/geog/application/) for PhD application requirements.

For queries, please write to: Dr. CHUA Siew Chin (siewchin@nus.edu.sg) and A/P WANG Yi-Chen (geowyc@nus.edu.sg) with the email subject: Forest Restoration Digital Companion Application. 

Qualifications

Successful candidates should have a Master’s or Honours degree with relevant research/ work experience. The candidate is ideally able to start work between June to August 2022, with (1) academic background in geography, environmental studies, forest ecology, GIScience, or related field; (2) experience in geospatial data analysis, aerial photo interpretation, and field work; (3) strong programming skills (Python and R preferred); (4) excellent written and oral communication skills. 

Interested applicants should refer to the Geography website (https://fass.nus.edu.sg/geog/application/) for PhD application requirements.

Covid-19 Message

At NUS, the health and safety of our staff and students are one of our utmost priorities, and COVID-vaccination supports our commitment to ensure the safety of our community and to make NUS as safe and welcoming as possible. Many of our roles require a significant amount of physical interactions with students/staff/public members. Even for job roles that may be performed remotely, there will be instances where on-campus presence is required. 

In accordance with Singapore's legal requirements, unvaccinated workers will not be able to work on the NUS premises with effect from 15 January 2022. As such, job applicants will need to be fully COVID-19 vaccinated to secure successful employment with NUS.

More Information

Location: Block AS2-03-01
Organization: National University of Singapore 
Department : Geography
Employee Referral Eligible:
Job requisition ID : 14570