Research Scientist in Climate, Land and Water Resources (80 to 100%) at Wyss Academy

Your tasks 

• Assess state and trends in climate, water resources, land cover and vegetation in the Ewaso Ng’iro 
• North River basin using available observations, and co-develop hypotheses to advance understanding  of emerging signals in water and biodiversity changes. 
• Provide future projections of the regional climate of the Ewaso Ng’iro basin using available model  projections by performing statistical downscaling and bias corrections, if necessary. 
• Analyse climate change scenarios for hydrological and vegetation modelling. 
• Support scientific collaborations with local partners (IGAD ICPAC, UoN, SEKU, CETRAD). 
• Support other transdisciplinary research linked to incubators of the East Africa Hub. 
• Supervision of PhD, MSc or intern students (if applicable) would be possible (no teaching requirements). 

Your qualifications 

• PhD in Climate/Atmospheric/Earth/Environmental sciences or a related field (PhD degree to be  completed or expected to be completed by the start of the position). 
• Work experience in one of the following areas: 1) climate change and its impacts, particularly on vegetation or water resources,  global or regional climate modelling or statistical downscaling. 
• Tools/methods (mandatory): Strong background in climate processes, proficient with data analyses (observations and climate models of various complexity), knowledge of statistical analysis, proficient  with programming tools, such as Python or R. 
• Tools/Methods (optional): Knowledge of African climate is a plus, experience with remote sensing  data, experience with dynamical or statistical downscaling techniques, and bias correction methods, experience with Linux and High-Performance Computing systems. 
• Very good skills in English (oral and wrien) are mandatory, Kiswahili is a plus.