Openings at Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

Duties and responsibilities

1. Lead research on biodiversity and tree genetic resources at CIFOR-ICRAF including nurturing strategic partnerships.
2. Formulating and developing world leading research on biodiversity and tree genetic resources, that has policy and development impact, together with other themes and geographic units at CIFOR-ICRAF and external partners and obtaining resources for CIFOR-ICRAF and partners to implement it.
3. Setting medium term and annual goals and targets for the theme that contribute to meeting CIFOR-ICRAF’s institutional goals and targets and monitoring their achievement with appropriate KPIs.
4. Formulating, developing, and sustaining partnerships with key research, donors, policy development organizations and engagement with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), as part of transformative partnership platforms where appropriate, to ensure delivery of the goals of the theme.

Organize effective management of the laboratory and gene bank facilities within the theme.

• Putting in place and monitoring effective management arrangements for CIFOR-ICRAF’s in situ and ex situ gene banks, and seed and genomic laboratory facilities.
• Ensuring sustainable financing of these facilities through charging projects for services rendered, obtaining programmatic funding and / or commercial use of the facilities

Manage a project portfolio to ensure sustainable staffing and development of the research area and its development impact.

1. Leading the development of project proposals with principal investigators (PIs) across the theme and other CIFOR-ICRAF units and partners as appropriate, that generates a project portfolio that provides sustainable funding for critical staff and facilities required for the theme to deliver its goals and targets.
2. Managing, in liaison with PIs, the sequencing, content and implementation of projects within the portfolio, including participation in projects as appropriate, to ensure sustainable funding of staff, development of the research area and documentation of its contribution to development impact.
3. Ensuring career development opportunities and the working arrangements for staff contributing to the theme, including mentoring of scientists and PhD students as appropriate.

Ensure organized data collection, storage, and high-quality scientific outputs commensurate with the size of the theme (number of staff and funding).

• Leading publication of high impact scientific articles in ISI journals, including participating in writing of articles and facilitating publication of high-quality articles by scientists within the theme.
• Supervising the probity and accessibility of data collection by scientists working on research areas covered by the theme at CIFOR-ICRAF and the scientific quality of outputs.
• Ensuring that the number and quality of scientific outputs produced by the theme is commensurate with the staffing and funding of the theme.
• Ensuring that scientific evidence is conveyed to next users, including policy-makers through appropriate engagement and products in appropriate formats (engagement in policy fora including the UNCBD), policy briefs, user manuals, leaflets, training courses).
• Ensuring, in liaison with CIFOR-ICRAF’s communication, outreach and engagement unit, that scientific advances in the research area of the theme are widely promoted through conferences and other events, popular articles, blogs and social media.

Other duties.

• Take reasonable care of your own occupational health and safety and that of others as obliged by CIFOR-ICRAF’s Occupational Health and Safety Policy and cooperate with CIFOR-ICRAF in complying with requirements under any statutory health and safety provisions of relevant country laws.

Requirements

• PhD in a relevant field with 15 years research experience.
• Proven track record of high impact research both in terms of scientific articles and their development and/or policy  impact.

Education, knowledge and experience

• PhD in a relevant field with 15 years research experience.
• Proven track record of high impact research both in terms of scientific articles and their development and/or policy impact.

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Duties and responsibilities
Terms of Reference:

Develop and implement spatial targeting efforts for agronomy investments
Implement workflows for spatial predictions of yield responses to agronomy investments in target populations and geographies
Design and supervise ex-ante impact analyses of agronomy project activities
Development of dashboards and other means of enabling interactive information queries related to priority indicators
Organize, manage, and analyze primary data collection through focus group discussions, key informant interviews, farm household surveys, and market surveys.
Contribute to project reporting and preparation of scientific manuscripts to be published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals.
Build institutional networks and contacts for effective functioning of current project and for developing future collaborations

Requirements
Preferred academic qualifications, skills and attitudes:

• Advanced R programming skills: programming expertise in other languages (Python, JavaScript, Julia) and computational environments such as Google Earth Engine are an asset
• Familiarity with data visualization methods and interactive dashboards (e.g., R shiny apps) is highly desirable
• Demonstrated expertise with spatial data and spatial modeling; experience with remote sensing, geo statistics, and/or spatial econometrics are an asset
• Demonstrated expertise in machine learning prediction methods, as well as other branches of applied statistics, are essential; knowledge of econometrics is a strong asset
• Ability to integrate data from multiple sources (e.g., open data, crowd-sourcing, and remote sensing)
• Training in data science, geographic information science, computer programming, statistics or other relevant methods in the context of applied natural or social sciences
• Prior experience with collection, assembly, processing and visualization of large datasets to describe agricultural productivity patterns, cropping systems resilience and corresponding explanatory factors
• Proficiency in written and spoken English
• Knowledge of agronomy, soil science, climatology or agricultural economics is an asset
• Demonstrated familiarity with smallholder farming systems is an asset

Education, knowledge and experience

• Advanced R programming skills: programing expertise in other languages (Python, JavaScript, Julia) and computational environments such as Google Earth Engine are an asset 
• Familiarity with data visualization methods and interactive dashboards (e.g., R shiny apps) is highly desirable 
• Demonstrated expertise with spatial data and spatial modeling; experience with remote sensing, geostatistics, and/or spatial econometrics are an asset 
• Demonstrated expertise in machine learning prediction methods, as well as other branches of applied statistics, are essential; knowledge of econometrics is a strong asset 
• Ability to integrate data from multiple sources (e.g., open data, crowd-sourcing, and remote sensing) 
• Training in data science, geographic information science, computer programming, statistics or other relevant methods in the context of applied natural or social sciences 
• Prior experience with collection, assembly, processing and visualization of large datasets to describe agricultural productivity patterns, cropping systems resilience and corresponding explanatory factors
• Proficiency in written and spoken English 
• Knowledge of agronomy, soil science, climatology or agricultural economics is an asset. 
• Demonstrated familiarity with smallholder farming systems is an asset.