Part-Time Research Assistant

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Summary:

The Research Assistant (RA) will work with Professor Alonzo to finalize a manuscript on phenological response to climate and land cover in a semi-arid environment. The RA will perform tasks such as processing high-resolution satellite data, statistical analysis of extracted phenological information, and summarization of results into written form. The RA will be responsible for finalizing a manuscript that can be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

Essential Functions:

1.) Analysis and Processing of Remote Sensing Data

• The RA will process satellite data to corrected surface reflectance using relative radiometric normalization. They will confirm date-to-date geolocation alignment and report out uncertainties from radiometry and image alignment. They will extract pixel values from all images using buffered, point shapefiles.

2.) Statistical Analysis

• The RA will gain expertise in the phenofit R package and produce phenological times series based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) at individual trees. With extracted phenometrics, they will build and test linear mixed models and XGBoost models to gain information about the relationships between climate cues, tree location in the urban environment, and the timing of phenological events.

3.) Literature Review

• The RA will build a body of literature in support of contextualizing their quantitative findings. This will involve literature search, construction of an annotated bibliography, and, finally, a literature review suitable for an article introduction and discussion section.

4.) Manuscript Preparation

• The RA will synthesize and collate quantitative and supporting information from the previous tasks into a manuscript suitable for submission in an appropriate peer-reviewed journal.

Competencies:

• Acquiring and Analyzing Information.

• Displaying Creativity.

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work:

• Part-time.

• Not to exceed 20 hours per week.

• This is a temporary part-time position ending on or before July 2026.

• Continuation of the program/position is contingent upon external funding.

Salary Range:

• $22.00 per hour.

Required Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent.

• Less than 1 year of relevant experience.

Preferred Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree.

Additional Eligibility Qualifications:

• Must have experience building and analyzing phenological models using PlanetScope data in semi-arid climates.

Other Duties:

• Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Benefits

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Other Details

• Hiring offers for this position are contingent on successful completion of a background check.

• Employees in staff positions at American University must deliver their services to the university from either the District of Columbia, Maryland, or Virginia, or perform work on-site at the university.

• Please note this job announcement is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

• American University is an E-Verify employer.

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