Infrastructure Equity Faculty Cluster Hire – Assistant or Associate Professor of Earth System Science

The Department of Earth System Science (ESS) within the School of Physical Sciences at The University of California, Irvine, is seeking candidates for an Assistant Professor (tenure track) or Associate Professor (tenured) position as part of UCI’s Black Thriving Initiative (BTI) Infrastructure Equity cluster hiring program. We seek a faculty member with a clear vision to expand scientific knowledge that can facilitate equitable mitigation/adaptation measures, address environmental injustice, and increase resilience within low income communities and communities of color. Their research should be directed at quantitative understanding of human-driven environmental challenges over local to global scales and the disproportionate impacts they may have on historically marginalized communities. The successful candidate will have a strong track record of research in Earth system science, climate science, geoscience, environmental science, human-dimensions of global change, and/or related STEM fields. The candidate should describe how they will contribute to the multidisciplinary Infrastructure Equity cluster and broader BTI efforts at UCI through their teaching, research, and service. Research areas of interest to this call include but are not limited to: air and water quality; extreme heat; land use, including urban heat islands and green space management; decarbonization of energy systems and infrastructure; equitable pathways for mitigating climate change; hydrologic extremes and flooding, and coastal hazards, including sea level rise and tropical cyclones. The candidate’s research may involve field or laboratory analyses, geospatial science, remote sensing, data science, modeling, and/or cross-disciplinary, community-engaged research.

This position is part of a campus-wide Infrastructure Equity faculty cluster hiring program, which amplifies UCI’s Black Thriving Initiative by recruiting engaged scholars across the fields of planning, policy, engineering, environmental science, and law to address social, environmental, and racial disparities in infrastructure planning, design, and implementation. The successful ESS candidate will join three recent cluster hires within the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy in the School of Social Ecology; the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering; and the School of Law. The cluster’s curriculum and programming components will foster cross-campus collaborations, build a community of scholars trained in community-based research, and engage with community organizations and governmental agencies in Black communities in Southern California and beyond. For more information, consult the cluster website: https://sites.uci.edu/iecluster/.

Launched in 2020 during the racial reckoning, the UCI Black Thriving Initiative mobilizes the entire university to transform UCI into the nation's foremost destination for Black people to thrive as students, faculty, staff, and community members served by the university. To this end, it consists of three action platforms that seek to inform choices, decisions, and priorities as a great public research university. These are: change the culture, leverage the mission, and engage with communities. A major feature of the BTI involves advancing understanding about the multifaceted Black experience and drivers of well-being in support of Black communities. The associated faculty cluster hiring program builds on and expands our shared values of diversity, equity and inclusion and commitment to social justice. Selected from a multi-year competition, the three BTI hiring clusters reflect the power and promise of interdisciplinary collaboration. They are: Environmental Health Disparities, Infrastructure Equity, and Poetic Justice. To accelerate and elevate the impact of the research, teaching, and service of participating and affiliated faculty, each cluster will receive dedicated programming support for three years. For more information, consult the BTI website: https://inclusion.uci.edu/action-plan/msi/uci-black-thriving-initiative/.

UCI is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). We seek faculty who are committed to diversity as well as diverse faculty who will be role models for our students. A recipient of an NSF ADVANCE award for gender equity, UCI is responsive to the needs of dual career couples, supports work-life balance through an array of family-friendly policies, and is dedicated to broadening participation in higher education. ESS values diversity in its faculty and strongly supports UCI’s mission for equity and inclusiveness. We are committed to ensuring accountability, providing training and education, conducting responsive research, and building sustainable partnerships. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.

To ensure full consideration, complete applications must be received by January 2, 2024. Please direct questions to the chair of the search committee, Professor Kathleen Johnson at kathleen.johnson@uci.edu.

To apply, please see the full listing here.