Post-Doctoral Fellow or Associate - Agronomy Data Scientist
CIMMYT, Zimbabwe
Job Description
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT, is not-for-profit agricultural research for development organization with partners in over 100 countries. Please refer to our website for more information: www.cimmyt.org
CIMMYT is looking for an outstanding, self-motivated, and result-oriented professional for the position of Post-Doctoral Fellow or Associate Agronomy Data Scientist to work on improving maize and wheat agri-food systems in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. The holder of this position will contribute to the development of a data management system for primary biophysical, agronomy, and socio-economic data in support of on-going research efforts in the region. The holder is also expected to lead and contribute to analysis and visualization of large datasets in collaboration with other scientists.
This post-doctoral fellow/associate scientist will work as a member of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems Program in close collaboration with other CIMMYT programs and with public, private, local, and international partners.
The location of this position will be Harare, Zimbabwe.
Specific duties:
- Conduct research in various projects in the region, with a focus on agronomy-to-scale and farming systems analysis at multiple scales.
- Support analysis of big data to unravel which technologies, work where and for whom and to quantify aggregated benefits across large scales.
- Evaluate the quality of existing data sources and development of a data management system for primary biophysical, agronomy, and socio-economic data.
- Collaborate with scientists to ensure legacy agronomy and socio-economic data are curated and stored in a common database and made available according to FAIR principles.
- Develop and document workflows for data management and analysis in R (Python would be advantage).
- Design user-friendly and creative solutions to increase data acquisition and delivery efficiency.
- Use domain knowledge to provide input data structured for large scale assessments using statistical methods and crop models, with a strong spatial component.
- Provide technical support and capacity building for CIMMYT scientists and national partners.
- Publish synthesis research in international journals.
- Provide support to the development of project proposals and reports.
- Any other activity as assigned by your supervisor.
Requirements
Required qualifications, skills, and attitudes:
- PhD degree in Computer Science, Crop Modelling, Statistics, or a related field.
- Advanced skills in Data Science and demonstrated data management experience.
- Demonstrated experience with R (or Python) programming.
- Experience applying best practices in data and database management, with a focus on Open and FAIR data.
- Experience in the use of collaborative tools and platforms for software development (e.g., GitHub).
- Enthusiastic about open source software.
- Experience handling large multi-thematic data with different formats; geospatial data processing and analysis is highly desirable.
- Proven ability to maintain code integrity and excellent documentation; clear understanding and operationalization of ETL processes.
- Good communication skills and command of English.
- Experience working in multi-cultural environments.
- The selected candidate should exhibit the following competencies: Client Orientation, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Problem Solving and Decision Making, Teamwork, and Communication.
Benefits
The position is for an initial fixed-term for three (3) years, after which further employment is subject to performance and the continued availability of funds. CIMMYT’s internationally competitive salary and benefits include housing allowance, car, comprehensive health and life insurance, assistance for children’s education, paid vacation, annual home travel airfare, contribution to a retirement plan, and generous assistance with relocation shipment.