Research Associate

ECS is seeking a Research Associate to work remotely.  

ECS seeks a full-time, remote Research Associate to support the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC).

This position will support NOAA Fisheries’ need to execute the project entitled “Seafood infrastructure and workforce supporting commercial and recreational fishing and seafood processing in US ports.” The goal of this project is to increase NOAAs ability to understand the impacts of environmental change and other stressors on the shore-side physical infrastructure and seafood workforce that supports fishing activities.  Shore-side physical infrastructure and seafood workforce in coastal communities fluctuate, yet changes continue to be amplified due to compounding factors.  These factors include, at minimum, environmental changes, natural disasters, spatial and temporal distribution of fish species, regulatory actions, gentrification, and competition with other space uses such as offshore wind. Access to commercial fishing infrastructure in local communities and seafood labor jobs are critical to resilient fishing communities. NOAA does not currently have access to data sets and indicators to address infrastructure and seafood workforce concerns on both a national and regional level.  The addition of this data to fisheries management actions will support resilient fishing communities.  Efforts from this project will be available for inclusion in data modeling, contribute to the Changing Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative (CEFI), be available to the public, provide proactive knowledge of communities prior to natural disasters, and provide more information for alternative uses.

This position will contribute to the scientific objectives and priorities of this project through, but not limited to, prioritizing the development of a national-level community fishing and seafood infrastructure and workforce database, generating a geospatial web tool to communicate the data, and including a regionally specific dataset.  This will include all required documentation, decision tracking, and reporting.  This will also participate in indicators development, adding new data to existing web tools, and assist with developing new tools for presenting and sharing findings of the project, including webpages and publications. The person will be required to work closely with the NOAA project lead in the Northwest and coordinate activities with contractors based in multiple regions as well as social scientists in all six of NOAA’s Fisheries Science Centers and regional offices to carry out the required tasks.

Tasks to be Performed:

In coordination with the NOAA Fisheries social scientists and team contractors, the contractor will be expected to contribute to the accomplishment of the following activities and deliverables: 

• Develop a geospatial, web hosted, and annually replicable database of commercial fishing infrastructure and seafood workforce. This will involve:
  1. Work with NOAA Fisheries to determine the best database program (that can be hosted in the cloud) for the project.
• Support team members to develop a set of fisheries seafood workforce data for inclusion in the database. This will involve evaluating demographic data as well as classifications of industries/trades and specific companies/organizations and making recommendations to assist NOAA Fisheries to acquire the necessary data.
• Develop a geospatial, web hosted, and annually replicable database of commercial fishing infrastructure and seafood workforce. This will involve:
  1. Work with NOAA Fisheries to design the best database program (that can be hosted in the cloud) for the project.
  2. Work with NOAA Fisheries to design geospatial mapping tool to communicate data.
  3. Work with NOAA Fisheries to develop a standardized list of community fishing infrastructure features that will be included in the national geodatabase,
  4. Reviewing and evaluating strengths and weaknesses of different data sources that can be used to populate the national geodatabase.
  5. Assisting NOAA Fisheries to acquire the necessary first set of data for the database.
• Support team members to develop a set of fisheries seafood workforce data for inclusion in the database. This will involve evaluating demographic data as well as classifications of industries/trades and specific companies/organizations and making recommendations to assist NOAA Fisheries to acquire the necessary data.
• Support team members to develop a national set of standardized indicators related to fisheries infrastructure and seafood workforce change based on the data identified in tasks #1 and #2. This task will involve close collaboration with team contractors and NOAA social scientists to identify a unified set of data points and metrics that can be used to measure and monitor change across fishing communities and regions.
• Support team members to develop a data management plan. This plan will include documentation of data sources relevant contact information, monitoring frequency, years available, among others, and define a process and schedule for data updates.
• Work with web developers and NOAA social scientists to support the integration of data and indicators into any existing web-based tools or models.
• Support the development of initial assessments, reports, data summaries and presentations using the indicators.
• Support the identification of additional goals and opportunities to develop tools to support environmental initiatives, citizen science data collections, and communication with communities.

Deliverables:

• Determination of database type/webtool requirements by Sept 29, 2025.
• Preliminary standardized list of community fishing infrastructure features to include in national geodatabase.
• Preliminary list of fisheries seafood workforce data to include in database.
• Final list of community infrastructure and seafood workforce data to include in national database including data sources.
• Data management plan/documentation finalized.
• Initial assessment testing of geospatial database/any reports) using the indicators completed.

A government-furnished laptop will be provided. 

Salary range: $65,000 - $85,000

General Description of Benefits

• Experience in database design and development.
• Experience in the development of web hosted geospatial tools.
• Experience in data management, analysis and presentation.
• Experience in the use of relevant database and statistical software (e.g. Oracle and R).
• Demonstrated familiarity with a range of publicly and privately available datasets including spatial data, State and Federal datasets, and commercial data sources.
• Experience with the development and use of indicators, with an emphasis on social/economic and spatial indicators preferred.

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