This position is located in the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, CO. The ecologist supports the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station acquiring and managing environmental data; analyzing and disseminating data; and completing field and laboratory work in scientific collaborations. For additional information about the duties of this position, please contact John Frank at [email protected].

Duties

Organize and manage databases that consist of records of fuels, meteorology, hydrology, soils, chemistry, and vegetation data. Develop and implement computer programs to perform Quality Assurance and Quality Control on ecological data collected. Conduct statistical analyses, evaluate patterns and trends, and summarize and report results from laboratory and field investigations. Analyze ecological data and information to address environmental issues. Uses specialized instrumentation, such as dataloggers, specialized hydrology equipment, terrestrial lidar scanners, and other supporting micrometeorological instruments. Assist scientists to automate ecological modeling, data analysis, and data summarization including tables and figures. Use ARC/INFO or similar GIS software/libraries (e.g. GDAL) for spatial analysis. Provide technical expertise and consultation in the areas of database management, data analyses, data collection, data visualization and analytics, computer programming and data applications.

Requirements

• You must be a US Citizen or US National.
• Males born after 12/31/1959 must be Selective Service registered or exempt.
• Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check.
• Successful completion of one year probationary period, unless previously served.
• Per Public Law 104-134 all Federal employees are required to have federal payments made by direct deposit to their financial institution.
• Successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit e-verify.gov

Qualifications

To qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Transcripts must be provided for qualifications based on education. Provide course descriptions as necessary. Basic Requirement for Ecologist Series (0408): Degree: A full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study in biology, or a related field of science underlying ecological research that included at least 30 semester hours in basic and applied biological sciences. These hours must have included at least 9 semester hours in ecology, and 12 semester hours in physical and mathematical sciences. In addition to meeting the basic requirement, you must also possess experience and/or directly related education in the amounts listed below. Specialized Experience Requirement: For the GS-11: You must have one-year specialized experience equivalent to the GS-9 in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as having two or more of the following: Organizing and performing quality assurance and quality control on databases consisting of ecological data (fuels, meteorology, hydrology, soils, chemistry, and vegetation-related). Programming and maintaining environmental sensors and equipment in support of fire research. Applying and integrating techniques associated with database management, statistical analysis and image processing. OR 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree with (coursework directly related to the position being filled) in fields such as geospatial analysis, hydrology, forestry, remote sensing; data management or data science. OR An appropriate combination of specialized experience and graduate level education described above. Only graduate education beyond what is required for a master's degree (more than 36 semester hours leading to a Ph.D.) is creditable for this combination. Work Experience: Your resume must clearly document the following for each block of work experience; the beginning day, month and year the work assignment started and ended; the hours worked per week; position title, and series and grade (salary) if applicable; and description of duties performed. This information must be provided for each permanent, temporary or seasonal appointment/work assignment or volunteer work and should be clearly documented as a separate block of time. Incomplete, inaccurate or conflicting work history may not be credited for qualifications purposes. This can result in an applicant not being considered for the position. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. TIME IN GRADE REQUIREMENT: If you are a current federal employee in the General Schedule (GS) pay plan and applying for a promotion opportunity, you must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirements of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. This requirement must be met by the closing date of this announcement.

Education

See above for education that may be qualifying for the specific grade level.

Contacts

• Address USDA Forest Service HRM Contact Center DO NOT MAIL IN APPLICATIONS, SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT. Albuquerque, NM 87109 US
• Name: HRM Contact Center
• Phone: 1-877-372-7248 X2
• Email: [email protected]