Developing Nitrogen Decision Support Tools to Improve Water Quality in Wisconsin

Dr. Christopher Kucharik, Professor and Chair in the Department of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is currently seeking a graduate project assistant (PA) interested in being part of a team that is researching how improved agricultural land management can lead to improved nitrogen and water use efficiency, including reductions in nitrate leaching to groundwater while continuing to produce food, fiber, and biofuel under a rapidly changing climate in Wisconsin. As part of a new three-year project funded by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the project assistant will join the Kucharik lab and be part of a collaborative interdisciplinary team of scientists on this project including two graduate students and collaborators at the US Geological Survey (USGS). This project will involve state-of-the-art agroecosystem modeling as well as spatial and statistical analyses to help support development of new Nitrogen Decision Support Tools (NDSTs).

Our overarching project goal is to: Assess the impacts of varied agricultural land management (e.g., crop type and rotation, N fertilizer and manure management, and irrigation) and weather variability across Wisconsin on N losses to the environment, with a focus on nitrate leaching past the root zone to the groundwater system. Research in the Kucharik lab is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating field work and ecosystem modeling across a continuum of spatial scales.  We have been developing new ecosystem modeling approaches for the past 20 years that combine crop modeling tools with process-based soil-plant-atmosphere models, and most recently 3-D groundwater modeling tools.  This approach is designed to answer questions from the farm scale to regional scale pertaining to the impacts of climate change and land management on crop and biofuel production, water quantity and quality, carbon and nutrient (N, P) cycling, and biogeophysical feedbacks to the climate system. Our mission is to find ways to enhance the resiliency of ecosystems – and the services they provide – to drivers of global change. For additional information about the Kucharik Agroecology Lab, visit https://www.kucharik-lab.com/ and read this recent news article https://grow.cals.wisc.edu/departments/features/a-model-solution

Position details. This is a 1-year 50% project assistant (PA) position, with a preferred starting date sometime in winter/spring 2020, with the potential for additional funding after the first year depending on performance.  The position comes with full tuition remission and health insurance. This student will have primary responsibility for leading efforts to develop a point scale mass balance-crop nitrogen accounting and loss estimation tool, as well as a point scale model of Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) using output from the Agro-IBIS agroecosystem model as well as other data sources.

Qualifications. Applicants must have strong leadership, critical thinking, and quantitative skills with an interest in agriculture and investigating the impacts of changing land management and climate on ecosystem services.  A background in agronomy, plant sciences, soil science, environmental biophysics, agroecology or a similar field is required. Experience with statistics and statistical packages such as R is preferred. Applications are encouraged from outstanding candidates who enjoy and work well in a collaborative team setting and have excellent communication skills.

To apply. Please email a cover letter stating experiences and interests and a current curriculum vitae (CV) as a single PDF to Prof. Chris Kucharik (kucharik@wisc.edu) by December 31, 2019.

UW-Madison is an equal opportunity employer, and specifically invites and encourages applications from women and minorities. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires the University to verify the identity and work authorization of the successful applicant. Any offer of employment is contingent upon verification.

2 December 2019