The EPA Environmental Research and Business Support Program has an immediate opening for an EPA ORISE Program Assistant with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA’s facility in Washington, DC.

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.

The Office of Administrative and Research Support (OARS) provides administrative services that enable and support ORD research. We partner with our customers to identify their critical needs, and meet or exceed them by leveraging our diverse knowledge, talents, and experience to provide exceptional "cradle- to-grave" support. The Extramural Management Division (EMD) within OARS provides extramural expertise for contracts, interagency agreements, and cooperative agreements whose usage spans across ORD’s labs, centers and offices and provides small acquisition contracting support for remote ORD labs with limited ORD-wide under special circumstances. The Partnership Management Branch (PMB) within EMD, provides project officers for ORD-wide partnership agreements.  One such agreement with the Department of Energy is the ORISE Research Participate Program (ORISE) that is extensively used to provide educational and research opportunities to students, post-docs and faculty in areas that support ORD’s research mission.

The selected candidate will assist the PMB and the ORISE Project Officer with the analytical and administrative duties required to support and assist with maintaining the ORISE program.

Administrative and analytical responsibilities will include:

• Reviewing new research opportunity announcements to ensure proper terminology usage and adherence to EPA ORISE policy, coordinating edits with mentors, – forwarding reviewed/edited announcements to the ORISE Project Officer with a recommendation to post, and maintaining an up-to-date spreadsheet of announcements with active hyperlinks, including opening date and selected participant(s).
• Assisting with the review of proposed ORISE participant travel packages to ensure completeness and adherence to policy, coordinating with ORD ORISE coordinators in the labs, centers and offices as needed. Prepare needed approval documentation for ORISE Project Officer.
• Reviewing ORISE participant-related international travel requests for completeness; assisting with the preparation of required documentation for submission to the Senior Resource Official (SRO); maintaining a spreadsheet by pre-defined data elements to record all ORISE international travel submissions and their status; maintaining an electronic file of all SRO approvals; assisting with the preparation of needed approval documentation for ORISE Project Officer.
• Assisting with maintaining current intranet content through assisting with the drafting of procedure documents, updating and highlighting policy changes, drafting assistance tools to aid mentors and ORISE coordinators in navigating through the various actions required during ORISE participants’ appointments.
• Assist with development of ORISE SharePoint site, if determined by the ORISE Project Officer to be preferential to using the intranet site for sharing of ORISE related policies, procedures, status logs, etc.
• Coordinating with the ORISE Project Officer, establish an electronic records filing system classified by major functional area (such as announcements, travel, recruitment, personnel security, reports, etc.) for the ORISE interagency agreements aimed at increasing access to and facilitating records management of documentation needed for decision-making, trend analyses, and audit purposes.
• Working with the EPA ORD records management specialist, prepare paper and electronic records for disposition, i.e., for destruction or archiving.  Prepare file lists and coordinate shipment to the Federal Records Center.

Communications-related responsibilities will include:

• Facilitating the logistics and coordination activities for briefings, meetings, workshops, and other collaborative efforts. This will include coordinating schedules of participants, maintaining a regular schedule of meetings, setting up webinars as may be required, etc.
• Assisting the ORISE Project Officer in the development of presentations to management.
• Maintaining records of meetings, correspondence, and action documents, and maintaining a system to track projects in progress.

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

Salary: Selected applicants will become temporary employees of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $21.80 for hours worked.

Working Conditions: The selected candidate will be supervised by a mentor who will provide day-to-day direction, as well as coach, advise and counsel the candidate and review his/her work. The mentor for this position will be a federal EPA employee.

This position will involve work in an administrative setting and is not expected to involve exposure to hazardous elements.

Travel: Travel is not anticipated.

Expected Start Date: This position is full-time and expected to begin in July 2016. The selected applicant will be temporary employees of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The initial contract period is through May 14, 2017. EPA may elect to renew the contract for an additional three (3)12-month optional periods.

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

Eligible applicants must:

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, communications or a closely related discipline 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.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

Successful candidates will have:

• Experience with Adobe Acrobat XI Professional and Microsoft design software (preferably Visio),
• Advanced skills with Microsoft Office applications including Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Word, and Outlook,
• Experience in administration support functions (recordkeeping, filing, etc.) and managing records (electronic and hardcopy) or databases,
• Strong leadership and organizational skills, including demonstrated ability to handle multiple assignments with competing deadlines,
• Strong proofreading and editing skills, and
• Strong written, oral and electronic communication skills.

How to apply

• Submit application and supporting documents by clicking on Apply Now button.
• For more information, contact EPAjobs@orau.org. Do not contact EPA directly.

• Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
• Degree: Bachelor's Degree or Master's Degree received within the last 24 month(s).
• Minimum Overall GPA: 2.00
• Discipline(s):
  • Business (11 )
  • Communications and Graphics Design (6 )

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, communications or a closely related discipline 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.