EPA Data Curator

Organization
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Reference Code
EPA-SSP-0012-19R
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.
Description

Background:

The EPA Environmental Research and Business Support Program has an immediate opening for an EPA Data Curator with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

The National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT) is responsible for developing computational tools and solutions for improving environmental risk assessments and regulatory decisions pertaining to chemical safety and sustainability. The NCCT ToxCast and Tox21 projects are testing thousands of chemicals in a wide range of state-of-the-art high-throughput biological assays. The DSSTox project is intended to ensure that the chemical data underlying these project and other EPA efforts is of the highest quality to reduce uncertainty and error in QSAR and hybrid modeling.

The candidate shall provide chemical data support for NCCT’s efforts to expand coverage and integration of relevant data sources into DSSTox. The candidate will work with NCCT researchers and NCCT’s software development team to collect, format, and load chemical data from a wide number of sources  with associated in vitro and in vivo data. The candidate will be a member of a multi-disciplinary research team and will be trained to support the development, programming, testing and maintenance of multiple applications requiring access to chemical and biology databases that provides a foundation for all of NCCT’s programs.

Chemical Data Curation Responsibilities will include:

  • Creating and managing scripts to interact with databases
  • Using specially developed user interfaces to manage chemical data
  • Applying cheminformatics toolkits to perform basic cheminformatics tasks (e.g., similarity searching) and standardize stored chemistry for modeling
  • Integrating chemical categorization ontologies (e.g., ChEBI) into the database
  • Developing automated tests to ensure data integrity
  • Participating in team code reviews
  • Maintaining records of meetings, correspondence, and action documents, and maintain a system to track projects in progress

Communications-related responsibilities will include:

  • Participating as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team
  • Interact with other members of the development team as well as EPA scientists
  • Documenting code and database development efforts

The candidate may be asked to present work performed as a poster at a scientific conference.

Location: This job will be located at EPA’s facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Salary: Selected applicants will become temporary employees of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $20.65 for hours worked.

Working Conditions: The selected candidate shall 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: Occasional overnight travel may be required.

Expected Start Date: The position is full time and expected to begin November 2016.  The selected applicant will be a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The initial contract period is through May 14, 2017, followed by three (3) additional 12 month option periods.

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

Qualifications

Eligible applicants must:

  • Be at least 18 years of age and
  • Have earned at least a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry or closely 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.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

Successful candidate shall:

  • Demonstrate experience working with chemical data extraction and storage,
  • Demonstrate education and/or experience in a programming or scripting language, and
  • Have a working knowledge of relational databases.
Eligibility Requirements
  • Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
  • Degree: High School Diploma/GED or Bachelor's Degree received within the last 24 month(s).
  • Discipline(s):
    • Chemistry and Materials Sciences (12 )
    • Engineering (1 )
    • Environmental and Marine Sciences (1 )
    • Life Health and Medical Sciences (45 )
Affirmation

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry or closely related field 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.

ORAU is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability); visit the ORAU website for required employment notices.