Research Management Coordinator – Land and Food System Modelling

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT- INTERNAL/EXTERNAL

Research Management Coordinator – Land and Food System Modelling

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

REF: RMCLF/ABC/023/26

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) seeks to recruit Research Management Coordinator – Land and Food System Modelling who will provide support to the Multifunctional Landscapes Lever of the Alliance in Ethiopia and beyond for the spatially explicit analysis of landscape analysis (hydrology, land-use change), socioeconomic integration to support national and regional development pathway development and food systems transformation in Ethiopia.  She/he will also support projects related to landscape research and integration of these far and landscape level analysis to regional and national development pathways using established models like FABLE and other impact and foresight models.  She/he will be a member of the Alliance which is based at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa.

General: The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) hereafter Alliance delivers research-based solutions that address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. The Alliance focuses on the nexus of agriculture, nutrition and environment. We work with local, national, and multinational partners across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and with the public and private sectors and civil society. With novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people. The Alliance is organized into six key levers: 1) Food environment and consumer behavior - reshaping the food environment and consumer behavior toward healthy and sustainable diets; 2) Multifunctional landscapes - fostering innovation for environmental health and productive landscapes to improve livelihoods; 3) Climate action - mainstreaming climate action in the food system to reduce risks; 4) Biodiversity for food and agriculture - making agricultural and tree diversity available and safeguarding it for the diverse needs of food system actors; 5) Digital inclusion - promoting inclusion in the digital agriculture revolution for equitable benefits; and 6) Crops for nutrition and health - putting nutrition and health at the heart of crop improvement to address the triple burden of malnutrition. The candidate will provide technical support to the Multifunctional landscapes lever in Ethiopia, more specifically in the domain of remote sensing, biophysical modelling, socio-economic analysis, and integration of national and regional development pathway. She/he will liaison with national and international partners to carry out participatory action research and development of frameworks to link farm and landscape processes as well as understand their interactions. She/he will also support efforts associated with establishment of sustainable land management to guide land restoration interventions in Ethiopia.

Key duties and responsibilities:

The candidate will integrate remote sensing, hydrological modelling, and spatial food-systems analysis to generate evidence that supports national food and land use system pathways in Ethiopia and East Africa. She/he will specifically:

• Design and apply machine learning and spatially explicit deep learning frameworks for land-use scenario trade-off analysis within land management pathways (irrigation expansion, afforestation, catchment restoration);
• Lead the spatial downscaling of FABLE national food and land-use pathways to regional and sub-national scales in Ethiopia zonal statistics extractor to translate aggregate national scenarios into spatially explicit maps of projected cropland, forest, pasture, and land-cover change by region and agroecological zone;
• Conduct spatially explicit analysis to identify Ethiopian landscapes where agroecological practices (ISFM, cover crops, agroforestry, diversified farming, no-till) offer the greatest co-benefits for food security, biodiversity, soil organic carbon, and GHG emission reduction, combining FABLE practice coefficient data with landscape-scale biophysical spatial layers;
• Process and analyze multi-temporal satellite imagery (Landsat, Sentinel) in Google Earth Engine to monitor long-term dynamics of land and food system pathway modelling for Ethiopia's and beyond.
• Develop spatially explicit decision-support tools and interactive dashboards that communicate land and food system hotspots (land-use projections, water stress hotspots, agroecological suitability maps, GHG emission spatial distributions)  to national policymakers, regional planners, and food system stakeholders;
• Support FABLE-C Ethiopia scenario parameterization by compiling and harmonizing spatially disaggregated data on crop productivity, livestock distribution, irrigation potential, and deforestation pressure across Ethiopia's administrative regions and major agroecological zones, feeding into FABLE Calculator calibration and different scenario development;
• Publish scientific findings in peer-reviewed journals on landscape hydrology, remote-sensing-based water monitoring, and spatially explicit food-systems modelling; communicate results to diverse audiences including scientists, policymakers, regional governments, and development partners through technical reports, policy briefs, blogs, and webinars/training sessions;
• Contribute to resource mobilization by co-authoring research proposals targeting international development partners and supporting capacity building in national partner institutions on GEE-based spatial analysis, FABLE nexus tools, and hydrological modelling methods;
• Develop and strengthen partnerships with Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water and Energy, regional environmental and agricultural bureaus, and universities to co-develop monitoring frameworks that link hydrological data, land-use change evidence, and food system pathway analysis for integrated national planning;
• Ensure rigorous research data management, open-science practices, and FAIR data principles — including maintaining version-controlled public repositories (GitHub) for all code and spatial workflows — to maximize reproducibility and utility of outputs for national partners and the FABLE Consortium.

Minimum Requirements:

Education:

• Masters’ degree or PhD in Geography, Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Food Systems Modelling, or a related field, with demonstrated expertise in geospatial analysis and quantitative environmental modelling.

• In depth knowledge in a technical and specialized field of study.

Experience:

• Master’s degree with 9 years or PhD degree with 2 years of professional experience

• Demonstrated expertise in processing local, regional, national biophysical and socio-economic data environmental monitoring applications.
• Proven experience in spatial downscaling of national-level models or projections to sub-national / regional scale;
• Experience compiling, harmonizing, and managing open-access global and national geospatial datasets (land cover, climate, vegetation indices, water bodies) with complete metadata for use in modelling platforms.
• Publication record in peer-reviewed journals spatial food-systems / landscape modelling.

Skills:

• Strong theoretical and applied knowledge in satellite image processing, spatiotemporal data analysis, and machine learning / deep learning methods for landscape and hydrological applications.
• Familiarity with AFOLU nexus models for agriculture, food and land use dynamics is a strong advantage.
• Proficiency in developing and applying spatial machine learning and deep learning models for environmental land and food system application.
• Proficiency in Python and/or R for geospatial data analysis, statistical modelling, and scientific visualization; experience with spatial network analysis
• Understanding of catchment hydrology, lake ecosystem dynamics, and climate–land surface interactions and their relevance to food and land-use systems.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to engage diverse stakeholders including national government ministries, CGIAR research programs, and international development partners.
• Excellent command of English, both written and spoken

Duty Station:    Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Position level:   HG 17

Minimum Base salary: USD 2,690 per month

Terms of appointment: This is a National Staff (NS) position with the Initial appointment of one year renewable appointment based on performance and funding availability. The ILRI remuneration package for nationally recruited staff in Ethiopia includes very competitive salary and benefits such as life and medical insurance, offshore pension plan, etc.   The ILRI campus is set in a secure, attractive campus with dining and sports facilities that are located on site. The ILRI campus is set in a secure, attractive campus with dining and sports facilities.

Applications: Applicants should provide a cover letter and curriculum vitae; names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to be included in the curriculum vitae. The position and reference number: RMCLF/ABC/023/26 should be clearly indicated in the subject line of the cover letter. All applications to be submitted online on our recruitment portal: http://ilri.simplicant.com/ on or before 18 November 2026.  

We thank all applicants for their interest in working for ABC/ILRI. Due to the high volume of applications, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ABC/ILRI does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing or training).

To find more about the Alliance, visit our Website at https://alliancebioversityciat.org

Suitably qualified women are particularly encouraged to apply.

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