Environmental Data Scientist - Environmental Data & Governance Initiative

Environmental Data Scientist - Environmental Data & Governance Initiative

Department: Environmental Data & Governance Initiative

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Remote

Compensation: $90,000 - $100,000 / year

Description

Position Description

The Environmental Data Specialist will develop and implement strategies and practices to archive federal environmental data and support the development and deployment of independent copies of federal data tools. The Environmental Data Specialist may participate in innovative data tool development, particularly related to geospatial analysis. This role combines software engineering, database management, data acquisition, GIS, and environmental science. Additional responsibilities may be developed collaboratively.

The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is a research collaborative with a mission to advance the environmental right to know. We are a horizontally organized community of caring and committed members, mostly volunteer, from multiple academic institutions and non-profit organizations. EDGI focuses on issues of environmental justice, data justice, information accessibility, and corporate and government accountability.

We expect all staff to adhere to EDGI's policies and procedures including our Code of Conduct and support EDGI's mission, vision, and values, which include justice; environmental and human health; intersectionality; anti-facism, anti-racism, and anti-oppression; accessibility; participatory knowledge-making; and responsivity and proactivity. There will be an employee review approximately three months after the start date to ensure mutual satisfaction.

Primary Responsibilities

Core Responsibilities:

• Design and implement automated data collection systems for environmental datasets using standard technologies
• Create metadata documentation for acquired datasets
• Manage data publication workflows to repositories (such Zenodo, Dataverse, Internet Archive)
• Interface with stakeholders to understand data requirements and priorities
• Reverse engineer web interfaces to optimize data access
• Collaboratively deploy data tool clones from agency open source code
• Support the development of innovative data science tools for laypersons

The Ideal Candidate

Desired Technical Skills

• Data repository management (such as Zenodo, Dataverse, Internet Archive)
• Code repository management and metadata documentation
• Experience with GIS software and analysis (including ESRI, ArcGIS Online, and QGIS platforms)
• Geospatial data processing and web serving
• Online GIS application development, maintenance and user experience
• Environmental science background
• Familiarity with Python, R, SQL and other programming tools with focus on data acquisition
• Information management and collaborative coordination of complex projects Web scraping methodologies
• Environmental data standards to optimize access and accessibility

Desired Domain Knowledge

• Environmental justice movement background, priorities, values, and advocacy needs
• Environmental data structures and formats
• Expertise in geospatial data and formats
• Data documentation and metadata standards
• Repository submission requirements
• Science communication and literacy
• Knowledge of environmental data and science needs from diverse stakeholders such as community based organizations and advocates, academic researchers, science and justice teachers and lawyers
• Support of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and indigenous priorities for federal environmental data support

Key Competencies

• Independent problem-solving
• Stakeholder communication
• Technical documentation
• Process optimization
• Data quality assessment
• Project management
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to multitask and meet deadlines
• Ability to take initiative and anticipate team needs, working without a manager
• Comfort working both independently and in teams; able to lead initiatives as well as take direction from others
• Ability to work collaboratively and non-hierarchically
• Adherence to policies and procedures; support for EDGI's mission, vision, and values, which include justice; environmental and human health; intersectionality; antifacism, anti-racism, and anti-oppression; accessibility; participatory knowledge-making; and responsivity and proactivity

Workplace and Compensation

Compensation: $90,000-100,000 annual salary

Expected hours: 40 hours per week; flexible schedule

Location: Fully remote

About EDGI

EDGI is a distributed collaboration operating under the fiscal sponsorship of the non-profit Multiplier, with volunteer members across North America. EDGI works to:

Investigate and analyze the inner workings of federal environmental policy, through interviewing of agency staff, as well as data and documentary collection and analysis;

Monitor and analyze changes to, web-based information about the environment, energy, and climate provided by the federal government;

Develop new ways of making federal environmental data more accessible to the public;

Imagine, conceptualize, and move toward environmental data justice;

Advocate for improved federal data and information governance policies and practices;

Prototype new organizational structures and practices for distributed, collective, effective work rooted in justice.

For more information about EDGI, please see our website.