Job Description

Ocean Associates Inc. (OAI) is seeking applicants for a full-time position to provide research support to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) Conservation Biology (CB) Division. We are seeking applicants for this position prospectively, which is dependent on award of contract. OAI is a Virginia corporation established in 2003 that provides consulting and technical services to the U.S. government, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and the private sector. We specialize in scientific program and project management, strategic planning, professional and technical services, and stakeholder engagement, supporting government contracts.

Background

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is responsible for the conservation and management of our Nation’s living marine resources and their habitats. By developing high quality science and supporting an ecosystem-based approach to management, NMFS provides important services to the Nation, including sustainable fisheries, healthy ecosystems, safe seafood, and protected species recovery. In the Pacific Northwest Region of the US, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) provides science in support of managing living marine resources in the West Coast of Washington and Oregon, including interior watersheds that support anadromous fish such as salmon and steelhead.

NWFSC scientists are major contributors to the California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (CCIEA), an interdisciplinary research effort led by NMFS. The CCIEA program’s goal is to provide science support for ecosystem-based management of the California Current, a productive coastal ecosystem in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. The ecosystem supports important fisheries and other human activities and provides services and cultural value for the tens of millions of people living along the U.S. West Coast. CCIEA team research on the California Current ecosystem supports a number of federal mandates, including sustainable fisheries management as outlined under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), and conservation and recovery of protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Among the CCIEA’s major products is an ecosystem status report (ESR) that we update and present each year. The primary audience is the Pacific Fishery Management Council, and many other management bodies, researchers and members of the public follow the reports as well. The purpose of the ESRs is to provide regular updates and interpretation of data that describe the status and trends of physical, ecological, economic and social conditions in the California Current ecosystem, with particular focus on key fished species (salmon, coastal pelagic species, groundfish, and highly migratory species), protected species (marine mammals and seabirds), and human dimensions in fisheries and coastal communities.

A rapidly changing, multi-use ocean highlights the need for managers to have accessible, reliable, up-to-date information that is tailored to their ecosystem-based management goals and objectives. Such information can support decisions such as opening or closing fisheries, adjustments to harvest policies, or responses to offshore planning requests. However, we currently provide most ecosystem information once per year in the static ESRs, which have been labor-intensive to produce.

The focus of this position is to modernize the generation, documentation, and reproducibility of California Current ESRs through the use of modern, open science tools and approaches (such as R scripts/packages for automation, RMarkdown/Quarto for report creation and automation and GitHub for workflow management). The position may also support more rapid provision of ecosystem information in web-based summaries. These improvements should make ESR production more efficient and also enable us to generate accessible products that are tailored and timed to the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s needs and schedules, and are also more useful to other researchers who make use of ESR data and content.

The scope of this work is to lead activities and development of products that will improve ESR reproducibility, documentation, workflow, reproducibility, and visibility, in collaboration with CCIEA scientists. These activities and deliverables should result in better service to the public through high-quality, timely reporting of ecosystem conditions on the West Coast. Focal activities will include: 1) creating R packages that automate the pulling, processing, plotting, and archiving of ecosystem indicator data from online sources; 2) creating an open-source ESR template, including code to import indicator data plots and tables; 3) creating a GitHub workflow and repositories for ESR production; and 4) creating user guides and documentation for all ESR-related activities. Depending on the rate of progress with these four, the employee may participate in development of a public page on the CCIEA website featuring regular, automated indicator data updates and analyses. Featured sets of data may mirror contents of recent ESRs, or be tailored to more specific or evolving needs of customers (e.g., the Pacific Fishery Management Council) and collaborators (e.g., NMFS stock assessment biologists).

The main objective of this project is to lead development of an ESR template, workflow and documentation, all of which will enable more efficient ESR reproducibility, automation, and transparency in future years; and to assist CCIEA scientists with use of the template and workflow.

Duties

Task One: Templates and code for creating reproducible reports

• Develop R packages that automate the pulling, processing, plotting, and archiving of West Coast ecosystem indicator data from online sources (e.g., ERDDAP, PacFIN).
• Develop an open-source ecosystem status report template in RMarkdown or Quarto. Template should include code to import indicator data plots and tables, and adhere to agency standards (such as Section 508 Compliance) and pre-determined specifications (such as figure and word counts).
• Provide monthly (or as needed) progress updates and demonstrations to ecosystem status report editors and key collaborators to facilitate code and template co-development.

Task Two: Workflow and documentation

• Lead and coordinate development of a transparent ecosystem status report workflow and data and code repositories.
• Create user guides and documentation describing the approaches, protocols, and practices of tasks performed in each of the R packages, which will ultimately be uploaded to the NOAA Internet Repository.
• Create onboarding documentation for CCIEA collaborators to the workflow so that others are comfortable using, contributing to, and helping maintain this workflow as needed.

Task Three: Outreach, engagement, and other deliverables

• In collaboration with CCIEA scientists, engage with Pacific Fishery Management Council staff and advisory bodies to match content and timing of ESR-related deliverables to needs.
• In collaboration with CCIEA scientists, engage with other NMFS teams and IEA regions that use similar approaches, in order to share code and tools, benefit from lessons learned, and minimize unnecessary duplication.
• If time allows, lead or support creation of automated ecosystem status report products on the CCIEA website, and/or automated conversion of the ecosystem status report into other formats, such as NOAA Tech Memos or Data Reports.

Deliverables

Deliverables shall relate to the above tasks and will include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following:

• Supply an ESR template, using RMarkdown or Quarto, which will be the basis for creating readily updatable and reproducible ESRs according to formats requested by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. Delivery schedule: Year 1.
• Supply R packages that automate the pulling, processing, plotting, and archiving of indicator data from online sources. Delivery schedule: Year 1.
• Develop a workflow and repositories for ESR creation, using GitHub. Delivery schedule: Year 1.
• Assist CCIEA staff with creation of an ESR using the template, codes, and workflow developed in Year 1, and incorporate improvements based on feedback from NMFS staff and partners. Delivery schedule: Year 2.
• Supply user guides and documentation for ESR development and for onboarding into the workflow. Delivery schedule: Year 2.
• Provide a monthly status progress report

Start Date: Start date is contingent on award of contract.

Location: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA

Salary and Benefits: This is a full-time position with benefits. Salary, commensurate with experience, between $26.00 – $36.00/hr.

Requirements

Applicants must have the following minimum qualifications:

• Advanced degree from an accredited college or university with a major directly related in a field of study as related to the requirements of specific task order with emphasis in marine science, fisheries, quantitative ecology, oceanography, data science, or similar fields; or, equivalent relevant experience.
• Demonstrated proficiency and experience with data management and statistical analysis, with statistical software such as R, SAS, MATLAB, etc. and/or programming languages such as Python.
• Demonstrated proficiency and experience with open source platforms for document generation (R Markdown, Quarto, etc.).
• Demonstrated proficiency and experience with developing, coordinating and managing workflows and repositories in GitHub.
• Good communication, coordination and collaboration skills, and a willingness to learn new skills, update existing skills, and share skills with colleagues in the CCIEA team, through R Users Groups, etc.
• Basic computer skills (MS Office, etc.).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively both individually and collaboratively in a team/group setting.
• Ability to receive constructive feedback and implement appropriate action.

Additional preferred qualification:

• Previous experience in web development, design and content management, or ability to learn, desired but not required.

Only qualified applicants that meet minimum experience or background requirements stated above need apply. When applying for this position you will be asked to upload your resume at the end of this online application.

Applicants should submit a resume that includes the following:

• Cover letter that briefly describes how you meet the required and preferred qualifications listed.
• Work history for past 10 years or since last full-time education.
• Education.
• Previous experience or training with similar requirements.
• Three professional references.
• Include your name in the document file name.
• Upload your resume in readable, not scanned, PDF or Word format (PDF is preferred).

How to Apply

Job Categories: Equal Opportunities. Job Types: Full-Time. Salaries: 40,000 - 60,000.

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