Forest Applications Scientist

ESA is seeking a Forest Applications Scientist with expertise in Earth Observation (EO) forest applications. As part of the Green Solutions Division, Climate Action, Sustainability and Science Department, Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes, you will be responsible for defining and implementing projects supporting the development of innovative Earth Observation forest-related applications with a focus on open-source and new technologies. Your duties will cover a wide range of research and development projects for forest applications to enable and facilitate international and European policies relating to biomass and carbon estimation, adaptive forest management, forest health and conditions, forest ecosystem services, and carbon markets. This will primarily involve a satellite multi-mission approach covering both optical and SAR (multi-frequency) data, considering both existing and upcoming missions such as BIOMASS and EO commercial datasets.

Key responsibilities include:

Project Management
Organising thematic consultation meetings, workshops, and conferences to review state-of-the-art EO forest-related applications in both optical and SAR technology and collect new user needs and recommendations.
Engaging with existing and new user communities involved in various domains in close coordination with colleagues from the Green Solutions Division and the wider Department.
Research and Development
Pioneering EO products, analytics, workflows, and precursor services in relation to the wide range of forest applications and enabling international and European policies on climate, environment, and sustainable development.
Maintaining a multi-mission synergy approach.
Collaboration and Uptake
Leveraging cloud computing environments, big data analytics, and cutting-edge information technologies, and pursuing open-source algorithms and tools.
Facilitating the uptake of the developed applications by various end-user communities, such as policy implementers, industry sectors, civil society organisations, environment agencies, and financial entities, with their active involvement during the co-design, co-development, and validation phases in collaboration with the Φ-lab.
Partnerships and Communication
Strengthening and establishing partnerships with key relevant policy stakeholders, such as the EU and the UN, and with authoritative user organisations, for example, national ministries, statistical offices, local authorities, and environment agencies, to contribute to the international responses to global societal challenges in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Green Deal.
Demonstrating the upscaling potential of forest-related applications towards global products and monitoring dynamic processes with high temporal revisits.
Support and Supervision
Supporting the collection of evolving user needs for future EO mission applications.
Fostering communication and scientific publications on project achievements.
Supporting the preparation and definition of relevant future new ESA programme elements.

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