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The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a full time Technical Support Associate position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Raleigh, NC.

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

EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) is a leader in the science of human health and ecological risk assessment, a process used to determine how pollutants or other stressors may impact human health and the environment. The center occupies a critical position in EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) between researchers in other parts of ORD and outside of EPA who are generating new findings and data and the regulators in EPA’s program and regional offices who must make regulatory, enforcement, and remedial action decisions.

NCEA addresses the needs of stakeholders by preparing technical reports and assessments that identify, evaluate, and integrate the most up-to-date scientific evidence. These products serve as a major component of the scientific foundation supporting EPA's regulations and policies. NCEA also conducts cutting-edge research to develop innovative methods and tools to advance scientific assessments, with recent emphasis on systematic review. Examples of this include more efficient literature searching/screening, streamlined data extraction, effective presentation of scientific data, and the integration of related software, tools, and databases.

The Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database facilitates access to the literature behind EPA science. The database includes more than 2 million scientific references and data from the peer-reviewed literature used by EPA to develop the following assessment products: Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) that feed into the NAAQS review, Provisional Peer Reviewed Toxicity Values (PPRTV) that represent human health toxicity values for the Superfund program, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), and chemical risk evaluations for the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). These assessments supported by HERO characterize the nature and magnitude of risks to human health and ecosystems from pollutants and chemicals in the environment.

HERO also serves as a hub for other assessment-related functions and has modular components to support tasks such as literature searching and screening and data extraction. Currently, with the advancement of systematic review tools and methods in assessments, NCEA is investing in HERO expansion to provide improved assessment development support.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will provide technical assistance in improving existing features and developing new features and capabilities related to the HERO database and related assessment work. Examples of this include data curation and extraction, tool/software testing and integration, and general project support to relevant assessment projects with appropriate guidance. You will be mentored by a member of the Immediate Office of NCEA, but you will work closely with a team of librarians, data specialists, developers, and scientists across the division and will be trained on the relevant aspects of database support/maintenance and relevant assessment development processes.

Data curation and extraction

• Providing quality control of HERO metadata (entered by third parties and imported directly from bibliographic databases) ensuring consistent quality, formatting and presentation;
• Verifying data to ensure correctness and completeness;
• Creating and/or modifying HERO reference tagging for project organization/maintenance;
• Performing data extraction from scientific research articles into specified formats and templates;
• Utilizing existing and developing new analysis tools for exploring and visualizing data; and
• Developing summary tables to present key scientific information and assisting in efforts to automate reporting and visualization of data.

Software/tool testing and integration

• Exploring tools and their application in assessment work with guidance from NCEA scientists;
• Improving the integration of tools already in use (e.g. SWIFT-ActiveScreener/HERO); and
• Assisting in development and testing of new tools where needs are identified.

General project support

• Testing and helping to develop new interfaces and tools for HERO;
• Creating new project pages and hierarchies of organizational tags to meet the needs of the scientists working on projects;
• Providing basic assistance, training and support to agency and contractor users of HERO;
• Working closely with multidisciplinary scientists to understand diverse technical needs and areas for capacity building; and
• Assisting in tracking of projects and HERO requests from various program offices.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Experience reading and summarizing scientific manuscripts at a high level;
• Strong written and oral communication skills;
• Excellent interpersonal skills;
• Ability to work well as a part of a team;
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications (i.e., Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook);
• Working knowledge of relational databases; and
• Expertise in at least one of the following: ColdFusion, SQL, Python, R, Java or Mongo, or advanced expertise in MS-Excel and/or MS-Access.

Location:  This job will be located EPA’s Raleigh, NC facility.

Salary: Selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $21.59 for hours worked.

Hours: Full-time

Travel: Occasional overnight travel may be required.

Expected start date: The position is full time and expected to begin May 2020. The selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The initial project is through May 14, 2021, with potential optional periods.

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

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a Bachelor’s degree in a field relevant to environmental risk assessment, including but not limited to ecology, toxicology, environmental science, and epidemiology, or in computer or information science 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.

• Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
• Degree: Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree, or Doctoral Degree received within the last 24 months or anticipated to be received by 5/16/2020 11:59:00 PM.
• Minimum Overall GPA: 2.00
• Discipline(s):
  • Chemistry and Materials Sciences (12 )
  • Computer, Information, and Data Sciences (16 )
  • Earth and Geosciences (21 )
  • Engineering (27 )
  • Environmental and Marine Sciences (14 )
  • Life Health and Medical Sciences (45 )

I certify that I am at least 18 years of age; a recent graduate with at least a Bachelor’s degree in a field relevant to environmental risk assessment, including but not limited to ecology, toxicology, environmental science, and epidemiology, or in computer or information science 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.