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The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a full time Environmental Health Assessment Support position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Washington, D.C.

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 Chemical and Pollutant Assessment Division (CPAD) develops scientific assessments on human health or environmental effects of chemicals or stressors to inform EPA Region and Program Offices, producing a portfolio of assessment products that serve different programmatic needs.

CPAD’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) plays an important role in EPA’s mission to protect human health through the development of human health assessments that evaluate health effects that may result from exposure to specific chemicals in the environment. IRIS assessments are not regulations but they provide a critical part of the scientific foundation for decision- making across EPA to protect public health under an array of environmental laws (such as the Clean Air Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act).  IRIS assessments provide high quality, publicly available information on the toxicity of chemicals to which the public might be exposed (in drinking water, in air, in soil).  IRIS is the top tier source of toxicity information and the primary source of information used by EPA, state and local health agencies, other federal agencies, and international health organizations in environmental health decision-making— decisions that protect against cancer and other diseases.  In providing the scientific and technical basis for many activities within EPA, the IRIS Program is essential for protecting public health.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will assist CPAD with providing the highest quality science-based human health assessments to support the Agency’s regulatory activities.  This includes technical, administrative and communication duties.

Administrative responsibilities:

• Assisting division scientists in special projects such as organizing scientific workshops and public meetings;

• Assisting the IRIS Program in coordinating all aspects of the IRIS process, including scheduling meetings, submitting, collecting, and distributing documents, maintaining a database repository for all documentation, summarizing scientific issues raised by meeting participants, and documenting responses to issues raised at various steps in the review process (including by agency reviewers, interagency reviewers, external peer reviewers, and the public);

• Maintaining records of meetings, correspondence, and action documents, and maintaining a system to track projects in progress;

• Assisting the Deputy Director with tracking the development of IRIS assessments for the purpose of maintaining schedules and meeting milestones. Student Contractors may be asked to develop tracking tools; and

• Assisting the IRIS Associate Director for Science in activities related to the IRIS Interagency Review process and the peer review of IRIS assessments by the Science Advisory Board (SAB) Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC) standing review panel. This includes development of meeting agendas, scheduling meetings, submitting, collecting, and distributing documents.

Communications-related responsibilities:

• Assisting in the logistics and coordination activities for briefings, public meetings, workshops, and other collaborative efforts and

• Working with the IRIS Associate Director for Science and other IRIS Program management in developing and reviewing programmatic and scientific web language related to the IRIS Program activities that will be posted on the IRIS website.

Technical responsibilities:

• Supporting the IRIS Program by following established Quality Assurance procedures and protocols to ensure that all health effects data generated or used by CPAD is scientifically sound and of known and acceptable quality for their intended uses;

• Assisting the IRIS Associate Director for Science in activities related to the IRIS Interagency Review process including summarizing scientific issues raised by interagency reviewers, categorizing issues and comments in an Access database, and maintaining an email database of scientific issues, responses and meeting participants;

• Reviewing scientific literature on the health effects of chemicals present in the environment and prepare data summaries in support of IRIS human health assessments. This may include identifying characteristics of individual toxicology or epidemiology studies that can influence determination of study quality, assisting with documentation of literature searches and search strategies, conducting library research, performing data entry, developing summary tables that present key information on study design and results from individual epidemiology and toxicology studies, developing tables of comments on draft IRIS assessments and summaries of comments, organizing and formatting scientific information consistent with standard IRIS templates, and generating various graphical presentations for health effects data (including figures generated from Excel spreadsheets or GraphPad); and

• Assisting the IRIS Associate Director for Science in activities related to the peer review of IRIS assessments by the Science Advisory Board (SAB) Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC) standing review panel. This includes participation in the preparation of scientific charge statements that address key issues in IRIS health assessments, assistance in preparation of issue statements for meetings with SAB support staff, and summarizing the resolution of scientific issues discussed in such meetings.

Location:  This job will be located EPA’s facility in Washington, D.C.

Salary: Selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $24.68 for hours worked.

Hours: Full-time.

Travel: No travel will be required.

Expected start date: The position is full time and expected to begin February 2024. The selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The option year renews May of each year through May 14, 2025.

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

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications (i.e., Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook) and the Internet;
• Experience in administrative support functions (i.e., recordkeeping, filing) and managing records (electronic and hardcopy) or databases;
• Strong communication skills (i.e., written, oral, telephone etiquette, presentation abilities), including effective multi-media technical communications; and
• Excellent proofreading and editing skills.

Qualifications

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a Bachelor’s degree in biology, public health, biostatistics, epidemiology, toxicology, or other closely related disciplines pertinent to the broad scope of human health risk assessment 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: Bachelor's Degree received within the last 24 month(s).
• Discipline(s):
  • Life Health and Medical Sciences (48 )

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a Bachelor’s degree in biology, public health, biostatistics, epidemiology, toxicology, or other closely related disciplines pertinent to the broad scope of human health risk assessment 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.