Job opening: Physical Scientist
Salary: $49 025 - 85 844 per year
Published at: Apr 08 2024
Employment Type: Full-time
This position is located in the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), with two vacancies in Stennis Space Center, MS.
This position is also announced under vacancy number NESDIS NCEI-24-12371038-DE, which is open to all US Citizens or Nationals. You must apply to both announcements if you want to be considered for both.
Duties
As a Physical Scientist, you will perform the following duties:
Assists in providing long-term stewardship of, and access to, earth science data and products, ensuring their quality and usefulness to the project and future customers.
Assists higher level scientists or data managers in the development of new techniques and approaches to solve problems using advanced sciences.
Acts as point of contact within the organization for international and national data providers that submit data, when needed, and verify quality.
Qualifications
Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at: https://www.opm.gov/policy.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS: This position has a positive Education Requirement in addition to at least one year of Specialized Experience OR substitution of education for experience OR combination (if applicable) in order to be found minimally qualified. Transcripts must be submitted with your application package. You MUST meet the following requirements:
EDUCATION:
Degree: Physical science, engineering, or mathematics that included 24 semester hours in physical science and/or related engineering science such as mechanics, dynamics, properties of materials, and electronics.
OR
Combination of education and experience: Education equivalent to one of the majors shown above that included at least 24 semester hours in physical science and/or related engineering science, plus appropriate experience or additional education.
AND
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. This experience need not have been in the federal government.
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.
To qualify at the ZP-2 (GS-07/09) level:
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: In addition to meeting the Basic Requirements above, applicants must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZP-1 or GS-05 in the Federal service. Specialized experience MUST include all of the following:
Compiling, processing, and analyzing scientific coastal, ocean, or environmental data; and
Assisting in analyzing and preparing data and scientific information for publication.
OR
SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION: One full year of graduate-level education.
OR
SUPERIOR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT (S.A.A): S.A.A. is based on (1) class standing, (2) grade-point average, or (3) honor society membership:
Class standing -- Applicants must be in the upper third of the graduating class in the college, university, or major subdivision, such as the College of Liberal Arts or the School of Business Administration, based on completed courses.
Grade-point average (G.P.A.) -- Applicants must have a grade-point average of:2.9 or higher out of a possible 4.0 ("B" or better) as recorded on their official transcript, or as computed based on 4 years of education, or as computed based on courses completed during the final 2 years of the curriculum; or3.5 or higher out of a possible 4.0 ("B+" or better) based on the average of the required courses completed in the major field or the required courses in the major field completed during the final 2years of the curriculum. Grade-point averages are to be rounded to one decimal place. For example, 2.95 will round to 3.0 and 2.94 will round to 2.9.
Election to membership in a national scholastic honor society -- Applicants can be considered eligible based on membership in one of the national scholastic honor societies recognized by the Association of College Honor Societies listed below. Agencies considering eligibility based on any society not included in the following list must ensure that the honor society meets the minimum requirements of the Association of College Honor Societies. Membership in a freshman honor society cannot be used to meet the requirements of this provision.
OR
COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: A combination of education and experience as described above.
Note: Only graduate level education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be combined with experience.
Education
College Transcript: If you are qualifying based on education, submit a copy of your college transcript that lists college courses detailing each course by the number and department (i.e., Bio 101, Math 210, etc.), course title, number of credit hours and grade earned. You must submit evidence that any education completed in a foreign institution is equivalent to U.S. education standards with your resume. You may submit an unofficial copy of the transcript at the initial phase of the application process. If course content cannot be easily identified from the title of the course as listed on your transcript, you must submit an official course description from the college/university that reflects the content at the time the course was taken.
Note: Your college transcript is used to verify successful completion of degree, or college course work. An official college transcript will be required before you can report to duty.
Special Instructions for Foreign Education: Education completed in foreign colleges or universities must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part in foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree. A listing of these accredited organizations can be found on the Department of Education's website. You
MUST provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation with a course by course listing along with your application. Failure to provide such documentation by the closing date of the announcement will result in lost consideration. For more information on how foreign education is evaluated visit:
OPM Foreign Education Evaluation.
Contacts
- Address NOAA Office of Human Capital Services (OHCS)
1315 East West Hwy
SSMC4
Silver Spring, MD 20910
US
- Name: Applicant Inquiries
- Email: [email protected]
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