Research Management Coordinator – Land and Food System Modelling

About the role

The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (ABC/ILRI) is recruiting a Research Management Coordinator for its Multifunctional Landscapes Lever in Ethiopia. The post provides technical support to the lever in remote sensing, biophysical modelling, socio-economic analysis and the integration of national and regional development pathways, and liaises with national and international partners on participatory action research. It is a National Staff position based at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa.

Key responsibilities

• Integrate remote sensing, hydrological modelling and spatial food-systems analysis to support national food and land-use pathways in Ethiopia and East Africa.
• Design and apply machine learning and deep learning frameworks for land-use scenario trade-offs (irrigation expansion, afforestation, catchment restoration).
• Lead the spatial downscaling of FABLE national pathways to regional and sub-national scales, producing maps of projected cropland, forest, pasture and land-cover change.
• Analyze multi-temporal Landsat and Sentinel imagery in Google Earth Engine to monitor land and food system dynamics.
• Develop decision-support tools and dashboards showing land-use projections, water stress hotspots, agroecological suitability and GHG emissions.
• Support FABLE-C Ethiopia scenario parameterization by harmonizing spatial data on crop productivity, livestock, irrigation and deforestation pressure.
• Publish in peer-reviewed journals and share results with policymakers, regional governments and development partners through reports, policy briefs, blogs and training.
• Co-author research proposals, build partnerships with ministries, regional bureaus and universities, and maintain open, FAIR data and version-controlled code repositories.

Required profile

• Masters' degree or PhD in Geography, Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Food Systems Modelling or a related field, with expertise in geospatial analysis and quantitative environmental modelling.
• Master's degree with 9 years of experience, or PhD with 2 years of professional experience.
• Proven experience in spatial downscaling of national models to regional scale, and in compiling and harmonizing open-access geospatial datasets with metadata.
• Publication record in peer-reviewed journals on spatial food-systems or landscape modelling.
• Excellent command of written and spoken English.

Required skills

• Satellite image processing, spatiotemporal data analysis and machine learning / deep learning for landscape and hydrological applications.
• Familiarity with AFOLU nexus models is a strong advantage.
• Proficiency in Python and/or R for geospatial analysis, statistical modelling and scientific visualization.
• Understanding of catchment hydrology, lake ecosystems and climate–land surface interactions.

What we offer

• Minimum base salary of USD 2,690 per month.
• National Staff position with a one-year initial appointment, renewable on performance and funding.
• Benefits such as life and medical insurance and an offshore pension plan.
• Campus with dining and sports facilities.

Applicants submit a cover letter, CV and three referees through the ILRI recruitment portal by 18 November 2026; only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.