The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research, and community service. Our staff not only enjoys outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.
Established in 2008, the College of the Environment is one of the premier environmental and policy colleges in the United States and the world and is an unparalleled hub of environmental scholarship, innovation, and education. By connecting world leading educators and researchers with undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners, and citizens, the College cultivates communities who work with and learn from each other as they tackle the environmental challenges of the 21st century. The College’s unique strength is the combination of outstanding faculty studying the Earth’s atmosphere, land, and water systems with those studying human dimensions of the environment, the application of engineering and technological solutions to environmental problems, and the impact of policy on environmental change.
The Stand Management Cooperative (SMC) was established in 1985 to provide a continuing source of high-quality data, analysis, and outputs on the long-term effects of silvicultural treatments and treatment regimes on stand and tree growth and development and on wood and product quality. The SMC is composed of federal, state, and provincial agencies and private companies conducting research on long-term forest production in western British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon on 527 research installations, which at present have close to two million measurement records.
The Stand Management Cooperative (http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.smc/) based out of the University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences is currently seeking applicants to fill a position in support of the Stand Management Cooperative's (SMC) field operations and research. This person will provide field research support and field project management oversight and will assist SMC research staff and students in the following areas: forest nutrition, forest growth modeling, silviculture, and or wood quality studies.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
The person in this position performs the following duties: assist in the development of field research projects and budgets, implement the research projects, including field installation, data collection and reporting with raw data and observations, supervise 1-2 field crew members. The majority of the work will be implementing the research project in the field and subsequent data collection. This may include surveying, tree and plant identification, tree measuring (all measurements from diameters, heights and stem measurements to stem, branch, needle and root biomass measurements), soil and plant sample collection, etc. The data collection methods use a wide variety of instruments and tools, some very specialized and others more common to forestry. In addition, many of the projects include setting up monitoring instrumentation and maintaining and collecting data from the instruments.
This position is responsible for all aspects of accomplishing the field work. This will include not only knowing the protocol for the job, but also budgeting time, securing the equipment and tools needed to maintain them, understanding and using data recording devices, securing and vouching for travel and handling expense reimbursements to hiring, training and supervising crews as needed. This person must have an understanding of, and work within, the proposed budget.
The person filling this position will be working independently in the field and unsupervised. This person must be self-motivated and resourceful. Since this person collects and/or oversees collection of the data, personal integrity and a respect for accuracy is a must. Further, given first-hand knowledge of the data, this person should be capable of providing an overall summary of their observations, and may be called on to draw conclusions or make recommendations as to the disposition of individual research sites. Applies standard practices and techniques in specific situations, adjusts and correlates data, recognizes discrepancies in results, and follows operations through a series of related detailed steps or processes. Defines and improves practices from experiences on small projects. As a research organization, the SMC offers opportunity for gaining new experience and professional growth as the individual develops into the position. This individual will collaborate with many other researchers and timberland managers in the public and private sector to accomplish SMC’s organizational goals; may provide ideas to improve efficiency at group level; networks primarily within own technical peer group.
The research sites are located on timber lands in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, requiring overnight travel on a frequent basis (generally Monday through Friday) to locations remote from the Seattle Duty Station. These lands are owned or managed by Public (federal and state) agencies and private land owners. The person in this position is expected to learn their rules for operating on their property and obey them. The hired individual will be driving 25 to 40 thousand miles a year in state owned vehicles on public and private roads, a valid driver license and an excellent driving record is required.
The job is approximately 80% in the field (in all weather conditions, steep rough terrain and a variety of settings and forest types) and 20% at SMC's office on the University of Washington campus. Time in the office will include reviewing and error checking/analyzing field data with the database manager, meeting with SMC's faculty, staff and graduate students to assist them in the design of future research projects and developing conclusions and hypotheses from past projects.
REQUIREMENTS:
Bachelor degree in an appropriate field with 1-year of related experience in forestry, forest management, forest engineering, related natural resource field. Candidates with 3 plus years of related experience in forestry, forest management, forest engineering or related natural resource field and Associate degree in forestry, forest management, forest engineering or related natural resource field are also encourage to apply.
Technical expertise in field forestry and safety procedures. Knowledge of the most current forest field equipment, including Juniper System's mobile computers, GIS/GPS, data collection software and safe chainsaw usage and other equipment. Knowledge of data collection and or timber cruising methods and protocols. Tree species identification. Strong attention to detail and excellent time management skills. Technical report review and editing skills. Operates independently under minimal supervision Responsive and client service oriented. Proficient MS Office Skills (especially Excel). Enthusiastic, energetic, team-oriented individual.
To excel in this position, the individual needs to be a well-rounded technical expert possessing a client service mindset.
Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
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