Climate-Smart Research Technician

Rodale Institute is hiring a Climate-Smart Research Technician for a project in the Southern Piedmont region, focusing on climate-smart agriculture practices. Responsibilities include data management, field data collection, and collaboration with various stakeholders. The role requires a Bachelor's degree in a related field and at least 2 years of experience. Frequent travel throughout the region is necessary, making this a non-remote position.
Job Description

The Climate-Smart program expands climate-smart agriculture and markets across organic and conventional farms in the Southern Piedmont (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama).

This work implements climate-smart practices including cover crop and reduced-till farming, studying their impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and soil health, verifying and improving the USDA COMET Planner Model for Southern Piedmont soils, assessing economic and social barriers to transition to climate-smart agriculture, evaluating various marketing strategies to influence consumer behavior toward climate-smart commodities, developing an easy-to-use app for farmers to utilize while marketing value-added climate-smart commodities, and modeling the impacts of climate change on the region's commodity suite.

The project provides financial incentives for underserved and small-scale farmers to encourage participation.

It plans to increase revenue streams and provide enhanced financial incentives, equipment, and technical assistance to guide the Southern Piedmont farming community toward climate-smart agriculture adoption.

This project is a collaboration between Rodale Institute and 12 universities, NGOs, and for-profit institutions across the Southeast and Midwest.

The Climate-Smart Research Technician position works on the Southern Piedmont Climate-Smart Project as designated by the Climate-Smart Project Director.

Key Responsibilities:
• Manage input of all project data into the EyeBase relational database, collaborating with the project team to ensure smooth and complete data transfer and entry across sectors.
• Assist the Climate-Smart Postdoctoral Researcher in field cover crop data collection and sample processing, and assist the Climate-Smart Farm Coordinator and Climate-Smart Outreach Coordinator as needed.

This position reports to the Climate-Smart Project Director and will work closely with researchers, technicians, technical assistance, and communications staff from 14 organizations across the southeast, Midwest, and Canada.

Frequent travel throughout the southern Piedmont region is required for this position, involving regular visits to participating farms, local meetings, conferences, farmer field days, yearly Climate-Smart Partner meetings, and other project-related events as needed.
Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Agronomy, Horticulture, Biology, Soil Science, Weed Science, or a closely related field.
• Minimum of 2 years' experience in research field/greenhouse/laboratory work, including data management.
• Evidence of attention to detail and ability to develop and maintain high-quality records and documentation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to troubleshoot problems.
• Self-motivation requiring little supervision.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Interest in working on a regional, large-scale, multi-disciplinary project managed remotely to accelerate southern farmers' impact on climate change.

Must be willing and able to work in all environmental conditions. Must have or be able to obtain a valid driver's license prior to starting the position. Microsoft Office proficiency required.