Post Doctoral Fellow Soil and Manure Greenhouse Gas Emissions at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

The position will contribute to the OneCG initiatives LCSR (Livestock, Climate and System Resilience) and MITIGATE+. The focus will be on direct measurements and indirect estimations of GHG emissions from livestock manure and soils of different land-use types (e.g., grassland, cropland, wetland, forest) to better understand the magnitude of emission sources and how they contribute to the full balance of GHG emissions from livestock-agroecosystems. Furthermore, the position will test management interventions to reduce GHG emissions and other pathways of nutrient loss (e.g., nitrate leaching, ammonia emissions) from livestock manure. Finally, the postdoc will develop nutrient budgets of different livestock agroecosystems to understand the balance of incoming and outgoing carbon and nutrient flows, nutrient transformation, and nutrient losses. These results will inform low-emissions development pathways for livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa that achieve mitigation and adaptation goals.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct agronomic, livestock productivity and greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements for different land use systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to allow the quantification of system-specific GHG fluxes, detect emission hotspots, and subsequently to develop reliable mitigation options;
• Manage and maintain laboratory and field facilities, specifically automatic soil GHG flux chambers, laser absorption spectrometers included in various setups (e.g., manure incubation chambers, soil flux chambers, etc.) to quantify GHG emissions from soil, vegetation, and manure;
• Conduct laboratory-scale mesocosm parameterisation experiments to allow direct comparison of GHG emission potentials from manures and soils for different environmental conditions and management and intervention testing;
• Conduct lab and field experiements to assess nutrient losses (C, N, P) from livestock manure;
• Co-supervise PhD and Msc students and guide research technicians;
• Conduct quality control and quality assurance of the collected data;
• Write scientific papers and prepare conference/workshop presentations describing results and their implications for productivity, GHG and nutrient management; and contribute to other communication products (research briefs, policy briefs, stakeholder meetings etc.);
• Develop innovative concepts and ideas for further research (including proposal writing) to address environmental aspects of agricultural productions systems that do not compromise food security.

Requirements

• PhD in nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, agronomy, geo-ecology, environmental sciences, soil science, or related fields
• Considerable practical knowledge of techniques and experience with equipment used in the measurement of GHG emissions from terrestrial ecosystems
• Knowledge of chemical analysis of environmental samples (soil and plant analysis) is an asset
• Ability to effectively manage, visualize and analyze (statistics) large datasets using standard programming languages (i.e., R, python etc.)
• Excellent spoken and written English
• Proven track record of scientific writing as first and/or corresponding author
• Knowledge on agricultural production systems in developing and/or developed countries is an asset