The Virginia Tech Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory in Manassas Virginia seeks a highly motivated and collaborative researcher with expertise in collaborative governance, particularly at the science-policy interface, and/or with social marketing. The postdoctoral associate will contribute to the implementation of a National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research (NSF-GCR) project on inland freshwater salinization. With the Occoquan Reservoir in Northern Virginia as its test bed, this NSF GCR project aims to understand the various sources of freshwater salinization and catalyze stakeholder-driven management strategies to address freshwater salinization. The project brings together faculty and students from four universities and nearly 40 stakeholders representing a broad range of societal sectors, perspectives, and expertise in freshwater salinization (https://salt.cee.vt.edu/).

This position is an initial two-year postdoctoral appointment. The salary is $70,000 per year, with a start date of February 1, 2023. PhD must be awarded no more than two years prior to the effective date of appointment with a minimum of three years eligibility remaining.

The postdoctoral associate will be based in the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Lab (OWML) in Manassas, VA, with occasional required travel to the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA. Occasional travel to attend professional conferences and engage in project activities is also required.

With the guidance of their faculty mentors and in cooperation with other project team members, the postdoctoral associate will work on the following research activities:
(1) Designing and facilitating stakeholder engagement, particularly to advance ‘joint fact-finding’ as a means to build a shared understanding of the nature of freshwater salinization and implications of potential decisions.
(2) Planning and executing studies to evaluate the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement and collaborative governance approaches applied, and in particular joint fact-finding efforts.
(3) Designing, implementing, and assessing a social marketing program within the water and sewershed to test the efficacy of strategies to reduce non-point contributions of salt to the system.
(4) Working with the team overall to advance its transdisciplinary convergence agenda, including a two-week transdisciplinary research summer bootcamp for undergraduates.
(5) Presenting and publishing cutting-edge research on collaborative governance, social marketing, and the facilitation and evaluation of convergence research.

With mentorship, the postdoctoral associate will lead the design of research, data collection and analysis, and manuscript writing on the aforementioned research topics. The postdoctoral associate will help support coordination and collaboration among the project team and with other stakeholders. The postdoctoral associate will have the chance to mentor masters and PhD students. The postdoctoral associate will receive guidance and training in the preparation of manuscripts for scientific journals, presentations for conferences, and proposal writing.