Africa Climate Careers Network's Climate Job Board

Discover emerging career opportunities in the climate and clean energy sectors

Spatial Data Scientist- Remote Sensing

Center for International Forestry Research

Center for International Forestry Research

Data Science
Nairobi, Kenya
Posted on Sep 11, 2025

Spatial data science

  • Optical data processing and analysis, including from sensors such as Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8/9.
  • SAR data processing and analysis, primarily Sentinel 1.
  • Timeseries analysis, including detection of trends and anomalies in temporal data (vegetation, precipitation, land surface temperatures, etc)
  • Predictive modeling of time series data, including forecasting where relevant.
  • Applications of machine learning for predictive modeling and mapping of indicators relevant to assessment of ecosystem health using a combination of field data and remote sensing.
  • Spatial data analysis tasks, including spatial queries, vector data extraction, processing, and cleaning.
  • General data analysis and report writing.
  • Supervise a team of junior spatial data scientists and developers.
  • Develop communication products/outputs where relevant.

Capacity development

  • Lead internal capacity development seminars within CIFOR-ICRAF.
  • Capacity development of partners and stakeholders through workshops as part of projects with particular emphasis on spatial data processing and modeling.

Stakeholder engagement

  • Work closely with the CIFOR-ICRAF stakeholder engagement team (SHARED) to provide analytical outputs that feed into project delivery, for example monitoring outputs as part of the Great Green Wall.
  • Contribute to stakeholder engagement events as part of the development of decision support tools and platforms.

Various other tasks

  • Contribute to micro-dashboard development as part of the Global Resilience Impact Tracker platform
  • Support projects and programs with analytical support and stakeholder engagement with decision makers.
  • Lead and/or contribute to scientific papers.
  • Contribute to proposal development and writing.