High Performance Computing Geospatial Analyst

Job Description:

The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (https://www.msi.umn.edu/) is hiring a full time geospatial analyst to support research at the University of Minnesota. The successful applicant will join the expanding RIS team, currently composed of ten PhD level informatics analysts. RIS was formed specifically to enable cutting edge research as a centralized resource for data analysis expertise. RIS collaborates on research projects with a wide variety of researchers, both internal and external to the University, and across a broad swath of research domains. RIS develops and contributes novel analysis workflows to address the challenges of working with large datasets and emerging data types.

The successful candidate will have excellent communication skills and a strong analytical/computational background, will be able to develop rapport with domain researchers, and is highly organized, and comfortable working as part of an interdisciplinary research team on a diverse set of projects. RIS analysts are frequently expected to identify combinations of existing tools to address novel analysis requests, and in some cases develop new tools to bridge gaps in the domain literature.

RIS has immediate needs in the area of Agricultural Research due to increasing quantities of data coming from sensors installed at agricultural sites, including: tractor mounted sensors, weather station, LIDAR, hyperspectral drone and satellite imagery, etc. As such, experience with the agricultural domain is preferred for this position.

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in geographical, computational, mathematical, agricultural sciences or related fields.
• 3+ year of work experience with GIS, geospatial computing or satellite/drone imagery as primary or secondary research field
• Hands on experience in developing and carrying out data analytical strategies and pipelines on GIS data in a high performance computing environment.
• Experience working with large-volume datasets, those likely requiring novel data structures and/or parallelized workflows for analytical processing.
• Experience and general proficiency with use of a high-level analysis tool or statistical language (e.g. R, SAS, MATLAB, Esri ArcGIS).
• Strong general computational and programming skills (competency with Python, Perl, Java, C/C++, or similar), experience in batch scheduled environments (torque, SGE, etc.), database design and querying skills (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or similar) and competency with UNIX/LINUX shell environment.
• Must be able to understand and translate domain researchers’ scientific goals into analytical strategies and process requirements.
• Able to begin employment within 6 weeks of offer.
• Excellent oral and written English communication and inter-personal skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience in Agriculture as primary or secondary research field
• Experience performing spatial analysis within varying scales using raster, vector, and network data models
• Experience processing data from remote sensors.
• Evidence of critical and independent thinking

Job Duties:

• Serve as an analyst and developer for large scale GIS and remote sensing projects across the University of Minnesota campuses.
• Carry out consultative informatics services and research with researchers and faculty.
• Design and develop appropriate informatics strategies related to GIS and remote sensing as required.
• Develop, prototype, and execute analytic workflows for GIS and remote sensing data.
• Assist in building out analytical infrastructure to support common needs of campus researchers.
• Appropriately document work conducted, both to comply with RIS reporting requirements, and to allow the preparation of any analytic reports required by the principal investigator of the project

To Apply:

Applications must be submitted online at the link included.  To be considered for this position, please click the Apply button and follow the instructions.  You will be given the opportunity to complete an online application for the position and attach a cover letter and resume.

Additional documents may be attached after application by accessing your “My Activities” page and uploading documents there.

To request an accommodation during the application process, please e-mail employ@umn.edu or call (612) 624-UOHR (8647).