Position opening at CESBIO

In the framework of the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) follow on mission, the Centre d’Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère (CESBIO) is opening a position. The duration is 12 months with a possible extension.SMOS was launched in 2009 and has been running very smoothly ever since (see here or on this blog). SMOS relies on the use of a new instrument: a 2 D interferometer to achieve both adequate spatial and temporal sampling and operates at L Band. It was followed by two other satellites SMAP and Aquarius with different observation modes but always operating at L band.With these missions in flight, a wealth of science and applications has been derived ranging from hurricane or thin sea ice monitoring to drought or flood forecasting or climate monitoring.It is however time to envision how to replace aging satellites and for this purpose the European Space Agency (ESA) initiated a study to define users’ requirements at low frequency passive microwaves.The study was awarded to a European consortium led by CESBIO.  In this context CESBIO is opening a position to contribute to this project.The role of the applicant is to basically participate within the consortium to the making of the project in the two main aspects:Support management and coordination:

• establish and operate web pages portal for both internal and external communication and management of the project activities
• report and documentation
• organise science meeting and write the related reports
• liaise with ESA and the international members of the project

Support for technical studies depending on his skill:

• contribute to establishing a list of the different products supported by L-Band measurements together with their accuracies and feasibility/ maturity from input of the community
• Translate and trace requirements from science end users to requirements for geophysical parameters, and to passive L-Band products.

• Contribute to a “cluster analysis” of products and applications according to their key requirements, like temporal and spatial resolution and radiometric accuracy
• perform simulations to assess requirements when needed

Applicants should possibly hold a Ph.D. degree in remote sensing or should have equivalent experience in space research and in physics and geophysics. They should have good communication skills. The applicant should be fluent in English (written and spoken). A good practice is a plus. The applicant should have excellent  writing skills for reporting and documentation.The work will take place within the SMOS team of CESBIO (Toulouse) and in collaboration with INRA (Bordeaux), several other teams in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Finland, Portugal, as well ESA (Noordwijck NL) and CNES (Toulouse France).Salary: Gross: about 2100 euros / month, depending on qualification and experienceDuration: 12 months minimumApplications (application letter + CV+2 references) should be sent to Yann Kerr (Yann.kerr@cesbio.cnes.fr; phone: 05 61 55 85 22)