The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a full time Chemical Safety and Sustainability Support position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Gulf Breeze, FL.

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

Within ORD, the Center for Environmental Measurement & Modeling (CEMM) conducts research to advance EPA’s ability to measure and model contaminants in the environment, including research to provide fundamental methods and models needed to implement environmental statutes. The methods and models developed by CEMM are typically applied at the airshed, watershed and ecosystem level.  Within CEMM, the Gulf Ecosystem Measurement and Modeling Division (GEMMD) provides leadership and specialized research in marine, estuarine, and watershed ecology and ecotoxicology to predict and assess the effects of human-generated stressors on the unique aquatic resources of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico & the Nation.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will provide support to a multidisciplinary team focused on community sustainability related research including ecosystem goods and services production and valuation. This research will be located in coastal communities of the Gulf of Mexico and their associated drainage basins and aquatic areas. Topics will include community sustainability relationships with landscape development, population growth scenarios as well as sea-level rise and precipitation change effects. The contractor may work closely with both a landscape ecologist and population ecologists to connect land and water sources of ecosystem goods and service production to beneficiaries through hydrologic networks. The contractor may also work with wetland biogeochemists, microbiologists, fishery scientists, and toxicologists to refine ecological production function curves based on literature reviews, field collected samples, and laboratory analysis. The contractor may become involved in developing scientifically based outreach products aimed at informing various audiences about sustainability research.

How you will apply your skills

Responsibilities:

• Convert model input data and output into maps in ArcGIS;
• Assist with laboratory analysis and field sampling activities (Field work may include working in hot, humid, and densely vegetated wetland environments with the possibility for overnight travel);
• Conduct literature searches involving data needed to parameterize and calibrate existing ecological models;
• Compiling and summarizing analytical data and literature references; and
• Data entry, documentation, and analysis.

Communications-related responsibilities:

• Participate as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team;
• Interact with EPA scientists; and
• Regularly update notebook with sample processing details and completion schedules; report regularly via email to inform team members of progress; update electronic reports as necessary.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Experience working with spatial data and building maps in ArcGIS;
• Experience with collecting field data in marine or aquatic systems;
• Experience using Microsoft Excel for formatting, normalizing, and managing data for statistical modeling;
• Experience compiling, organizing, and summarizing literature references; and
• Experience developing graphics, tables and GIS products for scientific reports and manuscripts.