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The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a full-time Ecological Modeling Support position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Duluth, MN.  

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 Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE) supports ORD by providing solutions-driven research to rapidly evaluate the potential human health and environmental risks due to exposures to environmental stressors and ensure the integrity of the freshwater environment and its capacity to support human well-being.  CCTE researchers are developing and applying cutting edge innovations in methods to rapidly evaluate chemical toxicity, transport, and exposure to people and environments.  Within CCTE, the Scientific Computing & Data Curation Division (SCDCD) develops the knowledge and information architecture necessary for integrating, transforming, and managing large scale data streams related to assessing the risk of chemicals. SCDCD creates and manages online tools and ensures compatibility with existing chemistry, toxicology, and other experimental data sources.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will support research under the Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) research program on modeling of human exposure to chemicals. The team member will assist with support of data needs, including acquisition and development of datasets to parametrize ecological models, assistance in the testing or evaluation of models, and basic summaries and analyses of data. The work of the team member may include gathering additional datasets from online sources, formatting datasets into standard templates, and uploading datasets into databases.

How you will apply your skills

The duties of the team member will include, but are not limited to:

• Conducting/participating in literature reviews;
• Working with databases and applying existing data curation tools;
• Conducting/participating in ecological and/or mathematical modeling; and
• Extraction, transformation, and integration of ecological data into a database.

Communication-related responsibilities include, but are not limited to:  

• Participating as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team including scientists, database administrators, mathematicians, and ecological modelers;
• Documenting code and methods;
• Written and oral communication of results and findings;
• Present work in internal reports/memos to be used by EPA scientists; and
• May have the opportunity to present work at scientific conferences.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Strong written, oral, and electronic communication skills;
• Knowledge of taxonomic relationships and life history traits;
• Experience programming in R, python, or other scripting languages; and
• Strong reading comprehension skills and experience logically interpreting pieces of information from a variety of data source types.

Desired Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Knowledge of ecology, toxicology, or environmental systems.

Location: This job will be located EPA’s facility in Duluth, MN

Salary: Selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $22.68 for hours worked.

Hours: Full-time.

Travel: Travel related to the position is not anticipated.  Travel for training and presentations at national meetings may be possible.

Expected start date: The position is full time and expected to begin September 2023. The selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The contract renews each May through 2025.

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

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a bachelor’s degree in the fields of ecology, environmental science, biology, applied mathematics, or a related field 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).
• Overall GPA: 2.00
• Discipline(s):
  • Business (11 )
  • Chemistry and Materials Sciences (12 )
  • Communications and Graphics Design (6 )
  • Computer, Information, and Data Sciences (17 )
  • Earth and Geosciences (21 )
  • Engineering (27 )
  • Environmental and Marine Sciences (14 )
  • Life Health and Medical Sciences (48 )
  • Mathematics and Statistics (11 )
  • Other Non-Science & Engineering (13 )
  • Physics (16 )
  • Science & Engineering-related (2 )
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences (29 )

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a bachelor’s degree in the fields of ecology, environmental science, biology, applied mathematics, or a related field from an accredited university or college within the last 24 month; 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.