Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Arizona Water Innovation Initiative

Description

The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative (AWII) is seeking to hire postdoctoral scholars at Arizona State University (ASU). The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative is a statewide project led by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in collaboration with Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Through this initiative, ASU works with industrial, municipal, research, agricultural, tribal, and international partners to rapidly accelerate and deploy new approaches and technologies for water conservation, efficiency, monitoring, forecasting, decision-making, policy, and equitable distribution. AWII’s mission is to drive a thriving water future through discovery, innovation, and action for the benefit of all of Arizona. The Initiative is organized into the following key areas:

• Global Center for Water Technology: To discover and demonstrate scalable water treatment solutions for industrial, municipal, and agricultural sectors
• Advanced Water Observatory and Decision Support System: To revolutionize measurement, modeling and prediction capabilities in hydrologic systems.
• Impact Water - Arizona: To catalyze community understanding and engagement in water challenges and potential solutions.
• Arizona Water for All: To engage with households to improve water security and engagement using community-based participatory approaches.
• Arizona Water Integrated Assessment: To synthesize across all AWII activities to quantify Arizona’s current and future surface and groundwater availability

This initiative is housed in a state-of-the-art research building on the ASU Tempe campus and its laboratory facilities in the Walton Center for Planetary Health, including faculty and graduate student offices, conference and theater space, computing and visualization facilities, indoor and outdoor labs with instrumentation, and public outreach activities.

AWII is seeking to fill multiple postdoctoral scholar positions during the 2024-2025 academic year. The Postdoctoral Research Scholar is a full-time, fiscal year, non-tenure track, benefits eligible position with an anticipated start date in September 2024. Our varied faculty represent a range of different schools within ASU (School of Sustainability, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and School of Community Resources and Development). The research positions and their activities are intended to cross these multiple disciplines including: policy, sustainability, engineering, hydrology, social sciences, water management, integrated assessment, and urban or rural planning, among others.

Essential Duties:

Topical research projects of interest include: 

1. Environmental, chemical, polymer, mechanical or related engineering fields to develop new water technologies from inception through patenting and start-ups;
2. Civil, water resources, software or related engineering and science fields to develop visualization platforms that monitor, model and predict hydrologic conditions;
3. Hydrologic remote sensing and modeling of surface and groundwater resources, including applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence; and
4. Participatory research to develop and test approaches to advancing water security in water-insecure communities.

Qualifications

Required:

• Applicants must have a recent Ph.D. (within the past four years) in a social science (e.g., anthropology, geography, sustainability, natural resource management, environmental social science, environmental sociology, public policy or affairs, social work, etc.) or a closely related discipline by the time of appointment.
• Demonstrated expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research is required.
• Demonstrated academic interests and experience publishing in one or more of the following topics: stakeholder research, participatory methods, co-production, or other related fields.

Desired:

• Expertise in stakeholder, participatory, or other community-based approaches.
• Experience in conducting applied/policy research and outreach with a range of stakeholders, including government scientists, policymakers, and marginalized communities.
• Rigorous research methods training, including research skills and experiences in individual and group interviewing, survey design, and mixed-methods analysis (including qualitative coding, data management, data analysis, and data visualization).
• Experience with social network research.
• Experience with large research projects.
• Experience working with undergradua