About IRRI

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) with the support of the Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture, and Farmers’ Welfare has established IRRI-South Asia Regional Centre (ISARC) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. It is a regional facility that supports research collaboration, training, and service provision to institutions, scientists, farmers, and other stakeholders from India and other South Asian and African nations. Recently the government of India has accorded approval for ISARC phase 2 through MOU with IRRI to implement next phase activities up to 2027. It has three verticals: Centre of Excellence in Rice Value Addition (CERVA), Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture (CESA), and Centre of Education, Innovation, and Research for Development (CEIRD)

Job Purpose

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world’s premier research organization dedicated to improving livelihoods and nutrition, abolishing poverty, hunger and malnutrition among those who depend on rice-based agri-food systems. In doing so, IRRI’s work protects the health of rice farmers and consumers, and the environmental sustainability of rice farming in a world challenged by climate change. The Sustainable Impact Platform delivers on key priorities of the IRRI Strategic Plan in the areas of Soil, Climate and Water, Adaptive Agronomy and Pest Ecology, Knowledge Tools, Livelihoods, Gender and Nutrition, Geospatial Science and Modeling, and Mechanization and Postharvest. This position will be based in the Digital Spatial Transformation of Landscapes Research Unit.

The main purpose of the Research Technician will be to support staff in input preparation of satellite images and timely monitoring of the field data collection and contribute to the development of rice fallow work, geospatial analytics, and field job. Under the supervision of the group scientist, this position will provide support in creating geospatial inputs, data integration, day-to-day geospatial activities, soil analytics, and other ISARC-based tasks. Our mission is to design, build and make available advanced research products that assist IRRI’s scientists characterize and target interventions for sustainable agriculture practices.

This position is based in Varanasi Uttar Pradesh and should be filled by the permanent resident of India

Roles and Responsibilities

• Support activities for, identifying and characterizing rice fallow systems and crop suitability mapping
• Able to handle multiple geospatial projects and assist scientists with timely deliverables.
• Support in design and implementation strategies for ground data collection, data analysis and post-validation of geospatial outputs
• Evaluate the research findings, and contribute to the writing of reports, and other communication material
• Support multiple experiments/surveys and research studies utilizing the Geographic Information System (GIS).
• Evaluate the quality of input data and integration of different kinds of spatial and non-spatial datasets; manage and maintain the database.
• Support in timely proximal data collection from in-house experiments plots using relevant devices (including drones) at regular intervals.
• Visit field sites for data collection.
• Support lab-based soil analytics
• Able to travel to the project and other required sites, whenever required
• Inform the immediate supervisor of the development of satellite image processing, analysis and GIS-based activities.
• Effectively communicate with immediate supervisors to ensure the delivery of research objectives.
• Work closely with project team members to ensure a full understanding of the scope, priorities, and deadlines of the activities.
• Organizational skills to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines.
• Supporting data generation and storage • Supporting reports and method documentation
• Any other tasks as assigned by Supervisor/ Unit leader

Qualifications

Master’s Degree in Remote Sensing or Geo-informatics or Environmental Sciences with 0-1 years of relevant working experience or preferably dissertation work in the application of Remote Sensing and GIS in soil and/or agriculture.

Or

Bachelor’s degree in Geo-informatics or Environmental Sciences with
2 years of relevant work experience in application of Remote Sensing and GIS in
agriculture

Skills Required

Mandatory

Experience in coupling spatial/remote sensing datasets with beginners level Good understanding of remote sensing technologies in agriculture & RS data analysis for crop monitoring, Hyperspectral remote sensing, data collection through spectroradiometer, Image processing, lab-based soil properties analytics, etc.

Fair proficiency in any of the remote sensing image processing, GIS software (e.g., ArcGIS, QGIS), and data analysis tools (e.g., ENVI, ERDAS) fair understanding of agricultural practices, crop physiology, plant health, and relevant agricultural parameters.

Preferred

Basic knowledge of writing scripts using R / GEE Experience with working on multiple satellite images including Optical and Hyperspectral sensors

In addition to the base salary mentioned above, IRRI also offers the following allowances:

• House-Rent Allowance:IRRI provides a house rent allowance of 40% of base pay per month.
• Transport Allowance:A monthly transport allowance of INR 2,000
• Dearness Allowance:One Hundred and Thirteen percent (113%) of employee’s base pay.
• Leave Travel Allowance (LTA):One-month base pay per annum, on availing minimum 2 days of vacation leave
• Education Allowance: INR 1000/- per child per month (limited 2 children)

IRRI offers a highly extensive employee benefits package inclusive of globally-covered medical insurance, retirement plan, life and accident insurance and other allowances. Join our team and be part of our story!
Please note only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.