Postdoctoral Scholar – Climate and Urban Health Salud Urbana en América Latina (SALURBAL)

The SALURBAL project at UC Berkeley is seeking a postdoctoral scholar to work in the area of climate change and urban health and health inequalities beginning January 2023. This is part of a large, multisite, research group (Salud Urbana en American Latina - SALURBAL) involving several institutions across the United States and Latin America. The position is for one year, full time, with renewal for up to one more year contingent on funding.

SALURBAL seeks to enhance our understanding of how complex changes in urban environments affect health and health inequalities among Latin America’s urban residents of 370 plus large cities. Within SALURBAL, there is increasing interest and support for examining how climate-mediated exposures and natural hazards affect urban health, including some recent publications available here, here and here. All SALURBAL publications are open access.

At UC Berkeley, the project is housed at the Institute of Transportation Studies and is led by a team involving Professor Daniel A. Rodriguez (City and Regional Planning) and Professor Iryna Dronova (Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and Environmental Sciences and Policy). The scholar will join a postdoctoral scholar at Berkeley currently working in SALURBAL. Prior scholars are now in faculty positions at the National University of Singapore, University of Michigan, Nanjing University, University of Haifa, and Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

Responsibilities and Duties
65% - Conduct research activities including: leading and contributing to manuscripts on climate and health; participating and potentially leading working groups on themes of interest (e.g.,   floods, heat, air pollution, green spaces, blue spaces); monitoring and reporting the progress of the project components; and working with other postdoctoral scholars and SALURBAL researchers; presenting work at conferences.

25% - Project management and coordination. Work with project leads at Berkeley to collect and analyze climatic and spatial data on urban heat; document and catalogue the data collected and developed; transmit and coordinate data analysis with biostatistics experts; organize and run internal and external virtual meetings for both projects.

10% - Participation in other SALURBAL activities; training and skills development; participation in UC Berkeley seminars and development opportunities; and attending bi-monthly SALURBAL virtual meetings; and meeting regularly with the UC Berkeley team

Basic Qualifications:
The successful candidate must hold, or be about to be conferred, a doctoral degree in Public or Community Health, City and Regional Planning, Geography, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, or related fields.
 
Preferred Qualifications:
Candidates that enjoy working in a multidisciplinary team environment that values problem solving skills and creativity will be given particular attention.
•    Expertise in either climate-related urban hazards or in climate-related health outcomes.
•    A broad understanding of the connections between the built and the natural environment and health
•    Considerable experience with statistical methods and related statistical software (R, SAS, Stata, Matlab, Python, or the like)
•    Experience and interest in drafting manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals
•    A desire to conduct urban research in the Global South
•    Detail-oriented, extremely organized, and comfortable with multitasking
•    Excellent oral, written, analytical, organizational, and interpersonal skills
•    Team oriented and experienced working with diverse groups of investigators and trainees
•    Some expertise in using geographic information systems (GIS) or Google Earth Engine
•    Some working knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese a plus

Salary and Benefits:
Salary will be commensurate with experience and qualifications based on negotiated pay scales available here. We are interested in candidates who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education through their work. UC Berkeley offers excellent health and welfare packages. It also has a number of policies and programs in place to support employees as they balance work and family. Information on available plans and eligibility can be found here.

To be considered for the postdoctoral scholar position:
Please submit a cover letter (usually one to two pages) to danrod@berkeley.edu with subject line “SALURBAL postdoc” stating the applicant's interest in the project, prior research experience and/or projects of particular relevance, areas of interest, key competencies, and anticipated date of availability. Include also a full CV and the names of three references.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination and affirmative action policy see: http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000376/NondiscrimAffirmAct.