Req #: 243020 Department: SEFS: PRECISION FORESTRY COOPERATIVE Appointing Department Web Address: https://sites.uw.edu/vkane/ Job Location Detail: Hybrid 3 days or more per week Posting Date: 01/31/2025 Closing Info: Closes On 02/07/2025 Salary: $6500-7500 per month Shift: First Shift Notes: As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For a complete description of our benefits for this position, please visit our website, click here. (https://hr.uw.edu/benefits/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/02/benefits-professional-staff-librarians-academic-staff-20230701\_a11y.pdf) As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem-solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world. UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. **The Forest Resilience Laboratory within the Precision Forestry Cooperative (PFC) in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington is seeking a research scientist.** We are looking for someone who is enthusiastic about developing multi-scale landscape-scale forest management analyses, plans, and tools to improve forest resilience to fire, drought, and climate change while preserving carbon storage and critical habitat. Our lab consists of a team of forest landscape ecologists, fire ecologists, and remote sensing experts who use airborne lidar and other remote sensing and geospatial data to measure forest structure and conditions over large areas. We produce landscape-scale ecological assessments of forest conditions, the effects of disturbances, and assessments and tools for ecological research and forest managers. We are looking to improve the depth of our engagement with the forest management community. While you would work with remote sensing and geospatial data, we are looking for your knowledge of and enthusiasm for forest ecology and management to improve our team’s abilities in these areas. In this position, you will lead and manage several existing and new projects. You will work with collaborators in the federal, state, and local land management agencies and local stakeholders. In one early project, as an example, you will map the presence and status of large/old trees using lidar derived tree approximate objects and high-resolution imagery in a large southern Oregon landscape, which was affected by drought and the 2021 Bootleg Fire. You also will work with collaborators at the University of Montana and the Washington state Department of Natural Resources to develop and apply a methodology to assess the effectiveness of forest management treatments to reduce the severity of wildfires. As these projects come to completion, you will transition to take lead research roles including collaborations with external stakeholders for our several studies of forest conditions and management in the Sierra Nevada and northeastern California. **DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES** **RESEARCH (40%):** The research scientist will conduct research on forest and fire landscape ecology to address both basic ecology and applied management questions. The research will focus on the distribution of forest structures, how ecological disturbance processes and management affect the distribution of those structures, and how managers, policy makers, and stakeholders can use the results to manage forests for greater resilience. You will apply and develop methods from a wide application of complex principles, theories and concepts from ecology to develop research questions, and conduct research requiring independent judgment in the evaluation, selection, and substantial adaptation/modification of standard techniques, procedures and criteria. _Typical activities that will reoccur on your projects include:_ • Lead effort working with PI and other stakeholders to define and clarify project goals and to translate those goals into a technical direction that includes analyses and data required. • Define technical direction of projects include reviewing scientific literature to understand current state of the art, clarifying project requirements, deciding on methods to be used choosing from existing methods or specifying requirements for new methods. • Identify data required to meet project goals; gather and/or produce data necessary to conduct analyses relevant to research questions; clean, organize, and prepare data for analysis to ensure quality and consistency. • Lead and/or conduct technical analyses required to meet project goals through statistical, geospatial, and modeling exercises using defined technical direction and identified data. Apply existing tools (typically software-based) or develop and debug new tools to carry out analyses required to meet the technical direction of the project. • Review results of analyses to ensure that they meet project goals and are scientifically and technically sound. Identify and resolve issues encountered during data processing, analysis, or modeling. Document challenges and solutions for future reference. **PROJECT MANAGEMENT (20%):** The research scientist will create, monitor, and implement effective plans for conducting project management to ensure project materials and timelines are met efficiently and effectively. The research scientist will be responsible for tracking project success, assigning tasks, and reporting project completion to their supervisor and project teams. _Typical activities that will reoccur on your projects include:_ • Lead and participate in project meetings including attending meetings to discuss research progress, challenges, and next steps; provide updates on tasks and deliverables to team members and collaborators. • Track project progress including developing and maintaining work plans, progress reports, and timelines to ensure research stays on track; sharing updates with team members through presentations, reports, or other communication formats. • Collaborate and communicate with team members including maintaining consistent communication with collaborators to ensure project goals are met; providing guidance and support by reviewing collaborators’ work and offering constructive feedback. **WRITING (20%):** You will take the lead in writing peer-reviewed papers and project reports and will contribute as co-author to similar efforts led by others. **COLLABORATION & FUNDING (10%):** The research scientist will lead and participate in collaborations with external and external collaborators and external stakeholders that translate research results—through tool development, webinars, training workshops, and technical and peer-reviewed publications—to improve forest management and inform climate change adaption strategies. Applied work will elucidate methods for increasing resilience to climatic stress, decreasing risk from severity wildfire, and maintaining or conserving biodiversity. The research scientist will both lead and participate in preparing proposals for future funding. **ADDITIONAL GENERAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (10%):** These will include activities such as • Represent the FRL and PFC with networks of external and internal collaborators and external stakeholders. • Mentor undergraduate and graduate students in learning the application of lidar and remote sensing data to assess forest structure and condition, which includes developing training materials, providing instruction, and addressing learning challenges. • Lead and work collaboratively in diverse teams including projects with other lab members and our external collaborators and stakeholders. • Participate in and lead in writing training materials and workshops for external partners to be able to use our products and analyses. • Work with lab managers to plan, schedule, conduct, or coordinate overall lab work plans • Participate in sessions at technical meetings and participate and present in external conferences, seminars, workshops, professional societies, and committees. • Apply and provide innovative problem-solving approaches to enhance organizational capabilities; develop peer network to expand technical capabilities and identify new research opportunities. **MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS** Bachelor’s degree in ecology, wildland fire, or forest management research and four years of experience in fire ecology research and/or forest management research using remote sensing OR Equivalent combination of education/experience. **Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.** **DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS** • Experience in the knowledge of the scientific method, including understanding and working knowledge of experimental design, sampling procedures, systematic literature reviews, error assessment methods, data analysis procedures, and both spatial and non-spatial statistical techniques. • Can identify, collect, and prepare data from disparate sources for analysis. Identifying appropriate methods to conduct scientific and geospatial analyses using both your own experience and by conducting literature reviews. • Ability to work independently while still being an effective member of scientific teams. • Experience in project management including writing work plans, coordinating team efforts, collaborating with a large groups and external partners, tracking progress, and managing tasks and documentations using Microsoft Teams. • Strong verbal and written communication skills to convey complex forest ecology science to technical and non-technical audiences, including land managers. • Experience in writing and contributing to manuscripts for peer-review journals. • Skilled in presenting results in professional conferences and to practitioners and stakeholders. • Skilled in creating maps, figures, and tables that effectively and creatively communicate results of analyses and research. • Demonstrated proficiency in geospatial analysis tools such as ArcGIS Pro, R, Lapis, and Google Earth Engine. • Experience in applying machine learning and other modeling methods to conduct local and global statistical analysis, and the ability to evaluate model performance and the accuracy of model predictions. • Knowledge of forest and fire ecology, forest management, and major forest health issues for forests and management strategies in the dry forests of Washington, Oregon, and California. • Research experience in evaluating the effectiveness of management treatments for improving resilience to future fires, mapping large trees from high resolution remote sensing data, and research experience in the forests of southern Oregon and/or eastern Oregon and Washington. • Experience in conducting research to evaluate forest structure and condition using high resolution remote sensing data, at scales ranging from individual trees to millions of hectares, to study ecological processes and assist forest managers in creating and sustaining healthy forests. • Experience in mapping overstory tree mortality and accessing accuracy using high resolution remote sensing data **Application Process:** The application process may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment, you will be prompted to do so the next time you log into your “My Jobs” page. If you choose to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed. University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, among other things, race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information.