Job Description

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Mechanical Engineering (MechE), to work at the intersection of urban planning and infrastructure development, engineering, and technology to identify innovation potentials in design and development and ultimately help co-produce solutions addressing critical challenges emergent from the polycrises of climate change and rapid urban growth in the Amazon.  Will collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to conduct cutting-edge research that aims to address pressing needs faced by vulnerable communities and migrants (in their sending and/or receiving communities) in the Amazon--with a special focus on sustainable, co-designed water and sanitation solutions for vulnerable groups increasingly living in fast-growing urban and peri-urban Amazonian environments.  Will conduct ethnographic and field research to identify user needs, socio-economic realities, cultural practices, regulatory policy environments, current financing arrangements, and technology gaps as they pertain to extant water and sanitation systems in Amazonian cities and peri-urban spaces; and conduct technoeconomic research to identify the requirements of new technologies, tools, and planning systems aimed at solving major water, sanitation, hygiene and/or related-problems.