The Biodiversity Data Coordinator will join a team of researchers and informaticians at the Center for Biodiversity and Global Change at Yale University to manage, build, and analyze geospatial biodiversity datasets to support conservation science and decision making. They will prepare global, regional, national, and local geospatial species and environmental data for external partners. The candidate will be responsible for maintaining rigorous data standards, FAIR data practices, and scientific integrity. They will work closely with other team members to ensure science products are delivered to partners and will be responsible for establishing new workflows, standardizing metadata, and maintaining taxonomies.
The Center for Biodiversity and Global Change at Yale University is home to Map of Life (MOL.org), which supports effective global biodiversity education, monitoring, research, and decision-making by assembling and integrating a wide range of knowledge about species distributions and their dynamics over time. Our team also leads the data integration and mapping efforts of the Half-Earth Project to identify and prioritize target areas for global biodiversity conservation. We work to support decision-making to conserve biodiversity using the best available science.
The Biodiversity Data Coordinator will provide data and GIS support to existing and prospective partnerships spanning many sectors (e.g., national governments, international and local conservation NGOs, business, finance, academia, etc.). We are proud of our long-term relationships, for example with NASA, Esri, Google, the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, and the Field Museum who have facilitated many more local and regional engagements.
More specific tasks of this role include managing biodiversity data across multiple software types and programming languages (e.g., ArcGIS, ArcGIS Online, R, SQL, and Bash). Assessing incoming datasets, preparing datasets to upload to the Map of Life database, and ensuring rigorous quality control following existing workflows Supporting species distribution and conservation modeling efforts. Maintaining taxonomies and metadata. Establishing and maintaining contact with data providers and users of our online mapping platforms, ensuring data sharing standards, and acquiring new datasets. Providing spatial analysis support for researchers and team members. Developing and maintaining documentation for Map of Life processes and data.
1. Determine best methodology for achieving goals efficiently and in a scientifically robust way.
2. Assess the data quality of datasets prepared by technicians and other data contributors to first evaluate whether any additional work is required in order to meet data standards.
3. Perform a series of data manipulation tasks using automated approaches utilizing knowledge of ecology and environmental sciences as well as programming knowledge and skills.
4. Prepare spatial biodiversity datasets to match complete phylogenies. Perform comprehensive literature review of new taxonomic descriptions to identify changes to species distributions and delineating the spatial coverage of new and updated species ranges based on published locality information.
5. Oversee the daily activities of the data mobilization team, made up of Yale student research assistants. Ensure standards and protocols are being updated and executed.
6. Analyze and summarize data from various projects for use in scientific papers, grant reporting, and web visualizations. Identify data gaps to drive priorities for data mobilization team.
7. Determine the most efficient and scientifically rigorous approach for analyzing and summarizing data. Provide recommendations to the full team to change protocols and advise strategic changes to data collection, processing, visualizations, and/or provisioning.
8. Ensure and maintain the integrity of biodiversity information for scientific analysis and meeting data contributor expectations for any data interpretation and visualization.
9. Performs additional duties as assigned.
- Master’s Degree in a scientific discipline and one year of experience or an equivalent combination of education and demonstrated experience.
- Demonstrated expertise using Geographic Information Systems (specifically Esri products) and geospatial analysis in R.
- Understanding ecological field surveys and data collection techniques with the ability to interpret data origins.
- Demonstrated experience with at least one programming language, preferably R, with the ability to acquire new programming languages and techniques.
- Well-developed written and oral communication skills and a well-developed record of scientific publications and presentations.
- Strong critical thinking, problem-solving and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and processes simultaneously.
- Master’s Degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology or Conservation Science.
- Demonstrated experience in analyzing large spatial biodiversity data.
Visit Careers at Yale to apply. Please submit a resume and cover letter in your application.