Health and Environmental Data Specialist

Zintellect is hiring a full-time Health and Environmental Data Specialist for the EPA in Research Triangle Park, NC. The role involves data curation, document acquisition, and project support for the HERO database, which aids in environmental risk assessment. Candidates should have knowledge of relational databases and strong communication skills. Desired skills include experience with programming languages like SQL and Python. This position is not remote.
The EPA Environmental Research and Business Support Program has an immediate opening for a full-time Health and Environmental Data Specialist position with the EPA facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

What the EPA project is about

The Office of Research and Development at the EPA supports research to improve the scientific basis for decisions on national environmental issues and help EPA achieve its environmental goals. Research is conducted in a broad range of environmental areas by scientists in EPA laboratories and at universities across the country.

EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) is a leader in the science of human health and ecological risk assessment, a process used to determine how pollutants or other stressors may impact human health and the environment. The center occupies a critical position in EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) between researchers in other parts of ORD and outside of EPA who are generating new findings and data and the regulators in EPA’s program and regional offices who must make regulatory, enforcement, and remedial action decisions.

The Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database provides an easy way to access and influence the scientific literature behind EPA science assessments. The database includes more than 3 million scientific references and data from the peer-reviewed literature used by EPA to develop its regulations for the following: Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) that feed into the NAAQS review, Provisional Peer Reviewed Toxicity Values (PPRTV) that represent human health toxicity values for the Superfund, and the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database that supports critical agency policymaking for chemical regulation. These assessments supported by HERO characterize the nature and magnitude of health risks to humans and the ecosystem from pollutants and chemicals in the environment.

What you will be doing

As a team member, you will provide data curation, document acquisition, and general project support to the HERO project. The required skills include but are not limited to assisting with file management, data curation, and quality control. You will be a member of a team of librarians and data specialists, and will be trained to support the development and operation of HERO.

Required skills
• A working knowledge of relational databases,
• Strong written, oral and electronic communication skills, and
• Ability to work well as a part of a team.

Desired Skills
• It is desired, but not required, that the candidate have experience with ColdFusion, Endnote, SQL, Python, Java or Mongo.

How you will apply your skills

Data curation includes but is not limited to the following:
• Quality control of HERO metadata (entered by third parties and imported directly from bibliographic databases) ensuring consistent quality, formatting and presentation,
• Resolution of duplicated citations into a single HERO record, and
• Verification of data to ensure correctness and completeness.

Document acquisition includes but is not limited to:
• Locating and archiving digital copies of original full-text articles relevant to the assessment, using agency provided resources and in accordance with copyright law, and
• Digitization and storage of relevant hard copy articles in the HERO database.

General project support includes but is not limited to:
• Testing new interfaces and tools for HERO,
• Creating new project pages and hierarchies of organizational tags to meet the needs of the scientists working on each project, and
• Providing basic assistance, training and support to agency and contractor users of HERO.

Location: This job will be located at EPA’s facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Salary: The selected applicant will become a full time temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $21.59 for hours worked.

Hours: Full time

Travel: No travel will be required.

Working Conditions: This position will involve work in an administrative setting and is not expected to involve exposure to hazardous elements.

The selected candidate shall be supervised by a mentor who will provide day-to-day direction, as well as coach, advise and counsel the selected candidate, and review his/her work.

Expected Start Date: The position start date is November 2019. The selected applicant will be a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA. The initial contract period is through May 14, 2020, followed by potential optional periods.

For more information, contact EPAjobs@orau.org. Do not contact EPA directly.