APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

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• CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, please login to Workday to complete the student application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.

• If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click “Apply” and complete the application process for external applicants.

 

Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants.

This is a term position; length of the term will be discussed during the interview process. Continuation past the term length discussed will be based on university need, performance, and/or availability of funding.

 

POSITION SPECIFICS

The Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences at Penn State University invites applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Scholar to support the NSF-funded project "Transitioning UXarray to a Sustainable Open Source Ecosystem" (NSF POSE). This is a 12-month appointment at 100% effort, with the possibility of renewal contingent on satisfactory performance and continued funding.

The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Prof. Colin Zarzycki and collaborate closely with partners at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The postdoc will play a central role in both the scientific application and open-source software development of UXarray, a Python package that extends Xarray to provide native support for horizontally unstructured computational meshes used in next-generation Earth System Models (ESMs).

In addition to UXarray-focused responsibilities, the postdoc will contribute to active research in global atmospheric modeling and weather and climate extremes. This includes participating in tasks aligned with ongoing collaborations focused on high-resolution Earth system modeling and the characterization of extreme weather events. This makes the position well-suited for a candidate seeking to combine expertise in scientific software development with original research in Earth system science.

Key Responsibilities:

Software Development & Technical Contributions

• Contribute to the continued development and maintenance of UXarray, including analysis operators, grid subsetting, remapping, and plotting capabilities for unstructured mesh data.
• Help develop and maintain contributor guides and onboarding documentation to lower the barrier for external contributors.
• Support code review processes via GitHub Pull Requests following open development principles.
• Represent the UXarray project at major scientific conferences and workshops, including AGU and AMS annual meetings.
• Assist in the delivery of training workshops at universities and research centers.

Scientific Application & Validation

• Apply UXarray to real-world