Postdoc in Long-Wavelength Radar for Forest Disturbance Monitoring

Are you motivated by the challenge of using next-generation radar data to advance forest disturbance monitoring and near-real-time alerting, while supporting efforts to combat deforestation and a better understanding of European forest dynamics? This postdoctoral position at Wageningen University offers the opportunity to contribute to both methodological innovation and operational monitoring.

The radar remote sensing team within the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to advance forest disturbance monitoring using long-wavelength radar data.

Radar remote sensing is highly valuable for forest monitoring because it is sensitive to structural change and enables systematic observation largely independent of daylight and cloud cover. At the same time, turning radar observations into reliable information on forest disturbance and regrowth remains challenging, as detection depends on wavelength, acquisition geometry, and environmental, seasonal, and atmospheric effects. These challenges are especially relevant with the new generation of long-wavelength missions, including NISAR and BIOMASS, and the upcoming ROSE-L mission.

The project focuses on developing and validating radar methods for forest disturbance monitoring and near-real-time alerting using long-wavelength data, with methods that are transferable across global forest ecosystems. It also applies these approaches to analyse European forest dynamics, including harvest, fire, wind damage, and bark beetle infestation. The work will pay particular attention to radar time series interpretation, large-scale implementation, and long-wavelength-specific effects such as ionospheric influences.

This position is embedded in a strong international and interdisciplinary research environment. The postdoctoral researcher will collaborate closely with international partners, including Prof. Cornelius Senf at TU Munich on European forest dynamics, and will be part of a well-established radar remote sensing network, including Dr. Maciej Soja at Wageningen Environmental Research. This provides an excellent setting for both fundamental and applied research, with opportunities to contribute to high-impact publications, collaborative projects, and operational monitoring products.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Developing, implementing and validating long-wavelength radar methods for forest disturbance detection, with a focus on NISAR and preparation for ROSE-L;
• preprocessing multi-frequency radar data from C-, L-, and P-band sensors;
• studying forest disturbance regimes across Europe;
• supporting the operational RADD near-real-time alert system;
• leading project deliverables and ensuring the timely and high-quality execution of research tasks;
• contributing to collaborative research in an international consortium;
• publishing in leading peer-reviewed journals and communicating findings to scientific and stakeholder audiences.

Your team
You will join the radar remote sensing team within the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing. The team studies human activities and the dynamics of forest ecosystems from regional to global scales using radar remote sensing. Its work focuses in particular on fundamental radar and multi-sensor methods, near-real-time change monitoring, and the integration of satellite observations with in-situ field data.

You will work here
You will work as part of a research team within the Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing (GRS), which is led by Dr. Johannes Reiche.

Management Office Assistent

Houd jij van overzicht en contact met mensen? Als Management Office Assistant (MOA) bij de leerstoelgroepen Celbiologie en Immunologie (CBI) en Host-Microbe Interactomics (HMI) in Wageningen University & Research (WUR) ben jij degene die alles soepel laat verlopen voor een enthousiast, internationaal team academici, waar gewerkt wordt aan vernieuwend onderwijs en onderzoek.

Als Management Office Assistent (MOA) ondersteun je de leerstoelhouders en stafleden van beide groepen bij onderwijs- en onderzoeks- en managementactiviteiten. Je zorgt voor een goed georganiseerde administratie en bent het aanspreekpunt voor studenten, docenten en onderzoekers. Je werkt op Wageningen Campus in een dynamische, internationale omgeving.

Jouw taken en verantwoordelijkheden als MOA zijn:

• ondersteunen van onderwijsadministratie;
• administratieve verwerking binnen onderzoeksprojecten;
• agendabeheer en communicatie voor de leerstoelhouder en de onderzoeksgroep;
• organisatie van vergaderingen en bijeenkomsten;
• eerste aanspreekpunt voor interne en externe vragen.

Jouw team
Je werkt samen met onze huidige MOA's en ondersteunt een team van docenten, onderzoekers, analisten en studenten binnen de leerstoelgroepen CBI en HMI. Ons team is betrokken bij onderwijs en onderzoek naar cellen en het afweersysteem in dieren en mensen (CBI), en de rol van het microbioom bij gezondheid en ziekte (HMI). Zo help je docenten en onderzoekers om bij te dragen aan betere gezondheid voor mens en dier.

Hier ga je werken
De leerstoelgroepen Celbiologie & Immunologie en Host-Microbe Interactomics maken deel uit van Wageningen University & Research. Wij doen fundamenteel en toegepast onderzoek gericht op de verbetering van de gezondheid van mens en dier. Bij CBI bestuderen we het functioneren van cellen en het immuunsysteem in dieren en mensen. Bij HMI bestuderen we ziekmakende bacteriën die infecties in dieren veroorzaken en manieren om ziekte en resistentie tegen antibiotica te verminderen. We verzorgen onderwijs op deze vakgebieden, en we begeleiden thesis studenten en stagiairs.

Postdoc position – Self-Supervised Learning for Image-Based Phenotyping

Future food systems urgently need new crops that deliver sustainability, nutrition, and resilience. This includes crops that support the protein transition and thrive under changing climates while staying within planetary boundaries. However, breeding progress on key traits, such as yield stability and drought tolerance, remains too slow to meet accelerating agricultural pressures. These traits are governed by complex genetic architectures and strong environmental interactions, making rapid improvement particularly challenging.

Digital phenotyping offers a transformative opportunity to accelerate crop improvement. Drones, satellites, and high-throughput sensors now generate large-scale, multi-temporal image data at single-plant resolution, capturing subtle variation in growth, stress responses, and yield components that conventional approaches cannot detect. The key challenge is no longer data collection but transforming these vast and complex datasets into actionable insights for advanced breeding.

In this context, the PHENOM project aspires to develop next-generation AI methods for plant phenotyping. The project focuses on self-supervised foundation models that learn biologically meaningful representations from plant images. Such models generate embeddings that could capture genetic variation, environmental responses, and their interactions, forming a new digital layer for phenotyping that goes beyond traditional statistical approaches.

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will design and develop self-supervised learning approaches for large-scale, multi-temporal plant image datasets. You will work on extracting robust and interpretable representations of plant traits, enabling more precise phenotyping and supporting predictive breeding pipelines.

You will work with quinoa as both a model and target crop—a resilient, protein-rich species suited to sustainable agriculture. The project is a collaboration between Radicle Crops and Wageningen University, combining extensive UAV datasets, real-world breeding pipelines, and world-leading expertise in agricultural AI. Together, the partners build an end-to-end pipeline from data curation and model development to validation in practical breeding applications.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Conduct research on state-of-the-art self-supervised learning and foundation models for plant phenotyping.
• Develop models for extracting meaningful representations from large-scale, multi-temporal plant image datasets.
• Disseminate your research through high-impact publications and presentations at leading AI and plant science conferences.
• Collaborate with interdisciplinary partners to integrate your methods into practical breeding pipelines.

You will work here
The research is embedded within the chair Artificial Intelligence which is led by Prof. Ioannis Athanasiadis. You will be co-supervised by Prof. Ricardo da Silva Torres and Prof. Ioannis Athanasiadis.

This position is part of the Academic Career Framework (ACF) at Wageningen University & Research.

Management Office Assistant

Do you enjoy keeping things organised and interacting with people? As a Management Office Assistant (MOA) for the Cell Biology and Immunology (CBI) and Host-Microbe Interactomics (HMI) research groups at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), you will be the one ensuring everything runs smoothly for an enthusiastic, international team of academics working on innovative teaching and research.

As a Management Office Assistant (MOA), you will support the chair holders and staff members of both groups in their teaching, research and management activities. You will ensure that the administration is well organised and act as the point of contact for students, lecturers and researchers. You will be based at Wageningen Campus in a dynamic, international environment.

Your duties and responsibilities as a Management Office Assistant are:

• supporting the academic administration;
• handling administrative tasks within research projects;
• managing the schedule and communications for the chair holder and the research group;
• organising meetings and gatherings;
• acting as the first point of contact for internal and external enquiries.

Your team
You will work alongside our current MOAs and support a team of lecturers, researchers, analysts and students within the CBI and HMI research groups. Our team is involved in teaching and research into cells and the immune system in animals and humans (CBI), and the role of the microbiome in health and disease (HMI). In this way, you will help lecturers and researchers contribute to better health for humans and animals.

This is where you will be working
The Cell Biology & Immunology and Host-Microbe Interactomics research groups are part of Wageningen University & Research. We conduct fundamental and applied research aimed at improving human and animal health. At CBI, we study the functioning of cells and the immune system in animals and humans. At HMI, we study pathogenic bacteria that cause infections in animals and ways to reduce disease and antibiotic resistance. We provide teaching in these fields, and we supervise thesis students and interns.

Due to Dutch immigration laws, candidates from outside the EU/EFTA zone, can usually not be hired for this position. More information can be found on the website of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Onderzoeker Plantweerbaarheid

Als HBO onderzoeker plantweerbaarheid draag je bij aan onderzoek naar nieuwe oplossingen voor het voorkomen en beheersen van plantenziekten en -plagen in de glastuinbouw. Je werkt draagt bij aan de ontwikkeling van duurzame teeltsystemen waarin gebruik van chemische gewasbeschermingsmiddelen verder kan worden beperkt of voorkomen.

Jij werk richt zich op praktisch onderzoek in kas en lab om antwoorden te geven op onderzoeksvragen van telers, toeleveranciers en overheden.

Binnen het team plantgezondheid ben jij verantwoordelijk voor coördinatie en uitvoering van proeven met plantenziekten – en plagen in lab en kas, zowel op het proefbedrijf in Bleiswijk als in de praktijk.

Jouw taken en verantwoordelijkheden als HBO onderzoeker plantweerbaarheid zijn:

• het verrichten van proeven met plantenziekten en -plagen in lab en kas;
• ontwerp, organisatie en uitvoering van experimenten;
• verwerking, interpretatie en verslaglegging van de onderzoeksgegevens, en bijdragen aan rapporten, (web-)artikelen en nieuwsbrieven;
• de begeleiding van stagiaires en studenten.

Jij gaat samenwerken met andere collega’s die actief zijn op dit thema ( 5 wetenschappelijke onderzoekers , 4 HBO onderzoekers, en stagiaires). Deze groep maakt onderdeel uit van het team gewasgezondheid dat bestaat uit 24 collega’s. Je standplaats is Bleiswijk waar we beschikken over moderne laboratorium- en kasfaciliteiten.

Hier ga je werken
Het team gewasgezondheid maakt onderdeel uit van Wageningen Plant Research, waarbinnen nog ruim 100 andere collega’s actief werken aan een duurzame glastuinbouw zowel op onze locatie in Bleiswijk als in Wageningen.