Environmental Risk Assessment Specialist

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The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a full time Environmental Risk Assessment Specialist position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Chapel Hill, NC.

The Office of Research and Development at the EPA supports high-quality research to improve the scientific basis for decisions on national environmental issues and help EPA achieve its environmental goals. Research is conducted in a broad range of environmental areas by scientists in EPA laboratories and at universities across the country.

What the EPA project is about

The Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA) provides the science needed to understand the complex interrelationship between people and nature in support of assessments and policy to protect human health and ecological integrity.  Within CPHEA, the Public Health and Environmental Systems Division (PHESD) focuses on the interrelationships between people and their environment, promotes human health and well-being, and fosters healthy and safe communities. PHESD scientists develop and evaluate measurements, methods, and models to better understand and quantify exposures and their effects on public health and the environment. The Division conducts innovative research on characterizing human and ecological exposures and understanding the impacts of these exposures on both human health and ecological integrity.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will work with researchers on projects focusing on linkages between the Opportunity Atlas and environmental factors such as air pollutants, water quality, green space, etc. The Opportunity Atlas was previously constructed by researchers at Harvard University, Brown University, and the U.S. Census Bureau, and is a publicly available database with census-tract-level estimates of children's earnings distributions, incarceration rates, and other outcomes, such as teenage birth rates by race, gender and parental income for the entire United States.

How you will apply your skills

Analytical responsibilities

• Conducting statistical analyses for epidemiological research, such as cluster analyses, and multivariable regression models including meta-regression; and
• Utilizing spatial statistical methods to develop visualizations of analytic output in GIS systems.

Management and Administrative responsibilities

• Assisting with the management and documentation of large (>70,000 observations) datasets to investigate associations between environmental factors and Opportunity Atlas variables;
• Assisting with development of data management plans, analysis plans and statistical design for epidemiological research;
• Conducting scientific literature searches (for example, Medline, PubMed, Google Scholar, etc.) and critically evaluating literature;
• Extracting, formatting, cleaning, linking, merging, documenting and managing large (>70,000 observations), complex databases from both environmental and health platforms;
• Assisting with quality assurance reviews of data acquired from non-EPA sources, including internal consistency, agreement with historical data and with well-established scientific knowledge, evaluation of out-of-range or extreme values; conformity to approved protocols; and the completeness of the accompanying written documentation; and
• Researching and summarizing information relating to environmental quality and health outcomes.

Communications-related responsibilities

• Participating as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team, including regular staff meetings;
• Interacting with EPA scientists and outside collaborators and stakeholders;
• Preparing detailed documentation of their efforts; and
• Preparing scientific presentation materials and manuscripts on their work.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Demonstrated experience in epidemiologic and statistical methods;
• Demonstrated experience working in teams;
• Proficiency with statistical analyses and programming using R and/or SAS;
• Proficiency in critical review and synthesis of environmental health literature;
• Strong communication skills (i.e., written, oral, presentation abilities); and
• Experience manipulating data and creating publication quality maps in ArcGIS, QGIS, and/or R.
   

Desired Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Experience with extracting, cleaning, and analyzing data from large (>100,000 observations) datasets.
   

Location:  This job will be located EPA’s Chapel Hill, NC facility.

Salary: Selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $29.57 for hours worked.

Hours: Full-time

Travel: Occasional overnight travel may be required.

Expected start date: The position is full time and expected to begin June 2020. The selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The initial project is through May 14, 2021, with up to 4 additional potential optional periods.

For more information, contact EPAjobs@orau.org. Do not contact EPA directly.

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a Master of Science or Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, computational biology, environmental science, public health, or other closely related field of study from an accredited university or college within the last 24 months and
• Be a citizen of the United States of America or a Legal Permanent Resident.

EPA ORD employees, their spouses, and children are not eligible to participate in this program.

• Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
• Degree: Master's Degree or Doctoral Degree received within the last 24 months or anticipated to be received by 6/26/2020 11:59:00 PM.
• Overall GPA: 2.00
• Discipline(s):
  • Chemistry and Materials Sciences (12 )
  • Communications and Graphics Design (1 )
  • Engineering (2 )
  • Environmental and Marine Sciences (2 )
  • Life Health and Medical Sciences (45 )
  • Mathematics and Statistics (10 )
  • Other Non-Science & Engineering (1 )
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences (3 )

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a Master of Science or Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, computational biology, environmental science, public health, or other closely related field of study from an accredited university or college within the last 24 months; a citizen or a Legal Permanent Resident of the United States of America; and not a current employee of EPA ORD or the spouse or child of an EPA ORD employee.