Postdoctoral Scholar - AI in Earth and Environmental Sciences

Job title: Postdoctoral Scholar - AI in Earth and Environmental Sciences

About the Role The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University invites applications for a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Hydrogeochemistry and Environmental Data Sciences (HANDS) research group. The position focuses on AI/ML and data-intensive Earth and environmental sciences, with two complementary research directions in energy/environmental systems and global water/elemental cycles.

What You'll Do

• Develop and apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistical modeling, foundation-model, and environmental data science approaches to large geochemical, hydrologic, geospatial, regulatory, and related Earth system datasets.
• Develop AI/ML-enabled workflows to characterize energy and environmental systems, including oil and gas well condition, characterization, and integrity-related questions.
• Collaborate in an interdisciplinary research environment, publish results, and contribute to open-science practices.

What We're Looking For

• Ph.D. in geoscience, hydrology, geochemistry, environmental science, civil/environmental engineering, data science, computational geoscience, Earth system science, or closely related field by start date.
• Demonstrated experience in AI/ML, environmental data science, statistical modeling, or related quantitative methods; strong quantitative, programming, and data analysis skills.
• Ability to work with complex environmental, geospatial, hydrologic, geochemical, or Earth system datasets; ability to develop reproducible computational workflows.
• Evidence of scientific communication through publications, presentations, reports, software, datasets, or related scholarly products; ability to work independently and in collaboration.

Nice to Have

• Experience or interest in AI/ML, statistical modeling, or data science applications in energy and environmental systems.
• Experience with oil and gas well datasets, well characterization, or integrity assessment; foundation AI models and interpretable machine learning approaches for scientific datasets.
• Application of AI/ML to catchment sciences, hydrology, hydrogeochemistry, water quality, watershed elemental cycles, or Earth system prediction.
• Experience with large environmental, geochemical, hydrologic, geospatial, regulatory, remote sensing, or Earth system datasets; integration of diverse datasets; predictive and transferable modeling; proficiency in Python, R.
• Experience with reproducible research tools (Git/GitHub, Jupyter, R Markdown/Quarto, HPC/cloud).
• Research experience or strong interest in hydrology, geochemistry, terrestrial water and elemental cycles, energy/environmental systems, catchment sciences, or Earth system science; mentoring experience is a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

• Pay range: $62,400 - $70,000 per year.
• This position is on-campus and part of SEIU Local 200United bargaining unit, with in-person collaboration and campus engagement expectations.