Postdoctoral Fellow, Lidar Studies Related to the Canadian HAWC Satellite Project

Postdoctoral Fellow, Lidar Studies Related to the Canadian HAWC Satellite Project

Primary Purpose : Canada is developing three satellite instruments, TICFIRE (Thin Ice Cloud and Far InfraRed Emissions), ALI (Aerosol Limb Imager) and SHOW (Spatial Heterodyne Observations of Water), jointly known as the HAWC (High-altitude, Aerosols, Water Vapour and Clouds) mission, for space observations of climate parameters. The successful candidate will join the HAWC Science Development Team.

Nature of Work : An overview of the HAWC project including details of the instrumentation has recently been published :

Langille, J., and Coauthors, 2025 : The High-altitude Aerosols, Water vapour and Clouds mission : concept, scientific objectives and data products. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., , , in press.

The HAWC Science Development Team (SDT) is jointly funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency. As part of this team, the successful candidate will investigate synergies between lidar and ALI measurements, for instance to extend ALI’s measurement capabilities or to develop new data projects. As part of this, they will support MPLCAN (, including updates to the automated data processing system as required for continued near real-time data processing. The successful candidate will work with Professors R. Sica (Western University, ) and A. Bourassa (University of Saskatchewan, ). The position is based at the University of Saskatchewan and is initially 1 year, extendable to 3 years.

Accountabilities : The PDF will report directly to Drs. Sica and Bourassa. The selected candidate will be expected to play a leadership role in the project, providing training and guidance to junior undergraduate and graduate students.

Education : To be considered for the postdoc position, an applicant must have a PhD degree in atmospheric sciences, meteorology, physics, or a related discipline of engineering, received within the past 4 years.

Licenses : N / A

Experience : Preference will be given to candidates who have hands-on experience with lidar systems.

Skills : The candidate shall have the ability to conduct original and independent scientific research and is expected to have experience in one or multiple of these skills :

• Atmospheric modelling,
• Analysis of atmospheric satellite measurements,
• Programming in Fortran, and Matlab or Python on Linux systems.