Job Description:

The School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts Boston is seeking candidates for a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Remote Sensing to begin September 1, 2025.

We seek an interdisciplinary scholar who applies remote sensing of global and regional processes to assess the impacts of climate change, land use, and/or urban development.  Experience at multiple scales from satellite remote sensing to individual drones, and from real-time assessment to historical and predictive changes is preferred. The successful candidate will be expected have teaching interests in remote sensing, spatial analysis, and statistics.

The School for the Environment prides itself on being a transdisciplinary unit. Therefore, the preferred candidate should be able to work within and complement the research activities of the faculty. We particularly welcome candidates that use interdisciplinary, collaborative, and stakeholder-driven problem-solving approaches. Being Boston’s only public research university located on Boston Harbor, we are particularly interested in candidates that examine the linkage of land and water in urban coastal areas.  Interests in complex human and natural systems that are shaped by climate change, human impacts, and socio-economic conditions will be positively viewed.

The candidate will have the opportunity to interact with programs and collaborators within the School for the Environment including the Urban Planning and Community Development Department, the Stone Living Lab, Urban Harbors Institute (UHI), Sustainable Solutions Lab (SSL), Mass Bays National Estuary Partnership, Nantucket Field Station, Living on Earth, and the UMass Boston CANALA (Collaborative of Asian American, Native American, Latino and African American) Institutes.  Collaborative research opportunities also exist through the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Scholarly Grand Challenges including Climate Equity and Urban Coastal Areas, Bridging Divides in Health Equity – Cells to Societies, Education for the Future, and Advancing a Just Society – Local and Global Dimensions. The successful candidate will be expected to have collaborative and impactful research that seeks funding from a range of public and private sources including government agencies (e.g. NSF, EPA, NIH, NASA, and NOAA). The successful candidate will receive mentoring within the School for the Environment as well as professional development opportunities, including through our institutional membership to the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD).

The School for the Environment comprises a diverse and dynamic core and a number of affiliate faculty with research expertise in coastal sensor networks, coastal zone management, urban planning, hydrology, coastal planning law, oceans and human health, climate adaptation, hydrogeology and geochemistry, and coastal ecology. For more information about the School for the Environment and its research and teaching programs.

Please visit our web site:

www.umb.edu/environment. 

Responsibilities:

The successful candidate will be expected to teach and mentor students across the Environmental Science (BA, BS, MS, and PhD) and Environmental Studies and Sustainability (BA) programs. In addition to teaching and research, the candidate will also be expected to provide service to the School, the University, and professional fields of study.

Minimum Qualifications:

 A Ph.D. is required; post-doctoral experience is preferred. The applicant will have the potential (or a demonstrated capability) to carry on an active, externally funded research program of international caliber and to supervise graduate and undergraduate students. The applicant should demonstrate the capacity to contribute to the undergraduate and graduate teaching needs in environmental sciences offered by the School for the Environment, and a willingness to engage in collaborative research with School and University colleagues.  Experience promoting increased diversity within academia and environmental science fields is strongly preferred.

Application instructions:

To Apply:

Please submit a curriculum vitae, a cover letter describing research and teaching interests, and the names and contact information (including email address) of three references. Application review will begin January 21, 2025, and continue until the position is filled. Interested candidates are encouraged to discuss this opportunity with Search Committee Chair, Bob Chen (bob.chen@umb.edu).

UMB is an urban public research university with a teaching soul that has an impact both locally and globally. We are the third most diverse university in the country - more than 60% of our undergraduate students come from minoritized communities and groups, and more than half of our students are the first in their families to attend a college or university. Thus, our students come to us from richly diverse life experiences and backgrounds; they bring to our classrooms and research settings the robust range of perspectives growing out of the socio-cultural, economic, and historical contexts in which they have lived, along with the challenges they encounter, engage, and strive to overcome. We invite applications from candidates who engage the diverse life experiences of our student body, who appreciate that students bring their holistic selves into the academic setting, and who recognize and articulate how their own life experiences and backgrounds have shaped their journeys, practices, and commitments as researchers, scholars, and educators.

UMass Boston is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, we will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact HRDirect@umb.edu or 617-287-5150.