Skip to main content
U.S. flag
Back to results

Biological Scientist/Physical Scientist

Department of Agriculture
Forest Service
This job announcement has closed

Summary

This employee supports the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 3 positions will be filled among the locations listed.

Employee serves as a Data Manager responsible for analyzing, managing, cataloging, and/or archiving environmental databases.

For additional information about the duties of this position, please contact Patricia Manley at patricia.manley@usda.gov

Overview

Help
Hiring complete
Open & closing dates
08/09/2023 to 09/05/2023
Salary
$69,107 to - $82,830 per year
Pay scale & grade
GS 11 - 12
Locations
3 vacancies in the following locations:
Arcata, CA
Placerville, CA
Redding, CA
Riverside, CA
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Travel Required
Occasional travel - Occasional overnight travel may be expected to travel for this position.
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Term - 24 months. May be extended up to 4 year maximum.
Work schedule
Full-time
Service
Competitive
Promotion potential
12
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Not Required
Drug test
No
Position sensitivity and risk
Non-sensitive (NS)/Low Risk
Trust determination process
Announcement number
23-RES-12077234-DHAT-JN
Control number
742133300

This job is open to

Help

Clarification from the agency

Applications will be accepted from any U.S. citizen. Direct Hire Authority will be used to fill this position. Veterans Preference and traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy.

Videos

Duties

Help
  • Duties listed are at the full performance level.
  • Works with researchers and professional technical staff to improve annotation of databases with descriptive metadata and to provide data to online depositories.
  • Maintains research data-related websites and content.
  • Provides program and technical advice for the collection, compilation, storage, analysis, reporting, and distribution of strategic annual multi-resource data.
  • Provides technical expertise, staff coordination and consultation in the areas of biometrics, data visualization and analytics, field collection techniques, and data applications.
  • Analyzes biological and/or physical science data and information to address complex resource issues; collaborates with partners and other inventory specialists.
  • Develops improvements to the procedures used for collecting, verifying, compiling, and summarizing strategic resource data.
  • Tests programs to ensure accurate and statistically consistent operation, and identifies problems and bottlenecks in the information management system and makes corrections and improvements.
  • Transfers data and reconciling inconsistencies, creating metadata records to document changes, and storing backup versions of original data files.

Requirements

Help

Conditions of employment

  • Must be a U.S. Citizen or National.
  • Males born after 12-31-59 must be registered for Selective Service or exempt.
  • Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check.
  • Successful completion of one-year trial period.
  • 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.

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.

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 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.

Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Provide transcripts qualifications based on education. Provide university course descriptions to clarify content of coursework as necessary.
Basic Requirements for 0401: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/0400/general-natural-resources-management-and-biological-sciences-series-0401/
A. Degree: biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position.
OR
B. Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Basic Requirements for 1301: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/1300/general-physical-science-series-1301/
A. 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
B. Combination of education and experience -- education equivalent to one of the majors shown in A above that included at least 24 semester hours in physical science and/or related engineering science, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Minimum Qualifications
GS-11: At least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-9 grade level in federal service. To qualify at this level, your experience must include the following:

Using techniques from statistical analysis, mathematics, image processing and analysis, forest inventory, geographic information systems (GIS), geospatial analysis, database operations, and computer science to conduct quality assurance tests on collection, compilation, storage, analysis, reporting, and distribution of strategic multi-resource data.

Transferring natural resource data and reconciling inconsistencies, creating metadata records to document changes, and storing backup versions of original data files following data governance processes and protocols.

Collaborating and consulting on research and monitoring projects to provide advice and respond to frequent user requests, satisfy the requirements of data users and research scientists, and assist researchers in extracting and interpreting spatial and tabular data.

OR
3 years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree directly related to the position in fields such as landscape ecology, forest dynamics, disturbance ecology, climate change research, population or community ecology, ecohydrology, or socioecological resilience modeling.

OR
A combination of graduate level education leading to a Ph.D. as described above, beyond the first two years of progressive graduate study (over 36 semester hours), and specialized experience described above that together meet the qualification requirements for this position.

GS-12: At least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level in federal service. To qualify at this level, your resume must reflect 52 weeks of ALL of the following duties:

Applying and integrating techniques from statistical analysis, image processing and analysis, forest inventory, geographic information systems (GIS), geospatial analysis, database operations, and computer science to improve techniques or provide solutions for collection, compilation, storage, analysis, reporting, and distribution of strategic multi-resource data.

Organizing data collected by researchers and/or from sensor networks, which includes accurately transferring data and reconciling inconsistencies, creating metadata records to document changes, and storing backup versions of original data files following data governance processes and protocols.

Working with a variety of scientific research teams and clients to identify problems related to climatic, atmospheric, hydrologic, forest mensuration, and/or geospatial data and conduct analyses of systems to determine nature of requirements and logical work and information flows.

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.

Education

See above for required and qualifying education. Graduate education alone is not qualifying for the GS-12 grade level. You must have the experience listed above to qualify.

Additional information

Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP), Reemployment Priority List (RPL), or Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP): To exercise selection priority for this vacancy, CTAP/RPL/ICTAP candidates must meet the basic eligibility requirements and all selective factors.

Selections made under this authority will be processed as new appointments to the civil service. Current civil service employees would be given a new appointment.

If you are selected for a position with further promotion potential, you will be placed under a career development plan, and may be non-competitively promoted if you successfully complete the requirements and if recommended by management. However, promotion is not guaranteed.

This is not a bargaining unit position.

This position may be eligible to telework up to four days per week, based upon the duties of the position. This position may also be eligible for flexible work arrangements as determined by agency policy and any applicable collective bargaining agreements.

This position is not eligible for telework.

The Forest Service may use certain incentives and hiring flexibilities, currently offered by the Federal government, to attract highly qualified candidates. Additional information is available at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-and-leave-flexibilities-for-recruitment-and-retention/

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

These positions will be hired under a Direct-Hire Authority. All applicants who meet the minimum qualifications will be referred to the selecting official. Before a certificate is issued to the selecting official, your resume is reviewed to ensure that you meet all the qualification requirements. A rating will not be used; veteran's preference does not apply due to the existence of the Direct Hire authority for this position.

Note: If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, you may be found ineligible. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.

To view the application form, visit: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12077234

Your session is about to expire!

Your USAJOBS session will expire due to inactivity in 8 minutes. Any unsaved data will be lost if you allow the session to expire. Click the button below to continue your session.