Job information

Post-doctoral Research Fellow (PDRF - 02) / Research Associate (RA - 02)

(Disaster Risk and Resilience)

1. Duties/Responsibilities:

PDRA 02 / RA 02 will be responsible to develop and undertake research as part of the international, multi-institutional UKRI GCRF Living Deltas Research Hub (www.livingdeltas.org). The work will be primarily focused on the activities related to the Work Packages assigned to AIT. The PDRA will work under the direct supervision of Dr. Indrajit Pal and Dr. Sylvia Szabo at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and in close collaboration with colleagues (Project Delta Countries and overseas) from across the Living Deltas Hub, which operates a model of equitable partnership with delta-dwellers and the research community.  Specific responsibilities will include:

• Conceptualizing and quantifying the risks to society from hydro-meteorological hazards;
• Generating Index-based tools to assess risks and resilience of communities vulnerable to multiple hazards;
• Analyzing options for risk governance mechanisms to enhance delta community resilience in the face of natural and human-caused disasters, and re-formulate integrated risk drivers;
• On needs basis, assisting the delta partners in designing the primary survey data collection efforts;
• Leading the design and delivery of knowledge products, including research papers
• Contributing to the development of a guiding document with and for communities to monitor SDG1 progress in deltas;
• Contributing to the analysis of SDG interactions;
• Writing text for websites, blogs, policy briefs s and projects reports;
• Assisting the delta partners in designing of the survey data collection efforts, and with the analysis of emerging survey data from this and associated relevant projects
• Any other duties as allocated by the line manager following consultation with the post holder.

(b) Qualifications

• PhD (or close to completion) in Disaster Management, Social Science, Remote Sensing GIS, Geography or similar disciplines with experience of natural hazard studies is required.
• Candidates with strong research background but without a PhD degree may be considered for a position of Research Associate;

(c)           Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Ability to conceptualise research themes and conduct relevant literature research and write project reports;
• Experience with modelling of hydro-meteorological hazards (floods and storms)
• Competence in understanding and quantifying the risk to society from hydro-meteorological hazards, and ability to interact effectively in a multi-disciplinary research environment. 
• Experience on hazards and risk assessment approaches.
• Previous research experience of ArcGIS and/or QGIS and remote sensing (e.g. Landsat, Sentinel and LiDAR) approaches and Risk assessment tools and techniques.               
• Experience of conducting statistical analysis (through IBM-SPSS, STATA, and/or R)  of household survey datasets;
• Ability to work with minimum supervision and respect deadlines; 
• Ability to plan and organise field work with assistance from the department’s administrative office;
• Ability/willingness to travel, including to resource poor locations (especially in project delta countries India, Bangladesh and Vietnam);
• A record of a couple of peer-reviewed publications is a plus;
• Work effectively in a team, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of others to help teamwork development.
• Ability to work flexibly according to the needs of the project
• A good command of English, both oral and written. Knowledge of other languages of the project countries would be an advantage.