Combining Environmental and Social Data in Coastal Areas

A research opportunity is currently available at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development (ORD), Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling (CEMM), Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division (ACESD) in Narragansett, Rhode Island. EPA ORD recently reorganized and these are the newly named Centers/Divisions/Branches. This was formerly in the Atlantic Ecology Division (AED) within the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL).

The research participant will have the opportunity to be involved in research on several topics related to water quality benefits and policies to improve coastal water quality, including a survey of coastal recreation in New England, compilation of coastal water quality metrics, and other topics. The research includes: development of models and methods to quantify people’s recreational uses of water, how water quality affects those uses, and people’s values for changes in water quality; people’s perceptions of water quality and how perceptions relate to objective measures of water quality and affect people’s choices; and use of new sources of human mobility data to model people’s behavior and values.

With guidance from their mentor, the research participant will have the opportunity to be involved in developing, managing, and analyzing spatial datasets; analyzing and reporting on social and environmental conditions of coastal areas; scripting data management processes, and collaborating on scientific writing or presentations. This is an opportunity to learn about the social and ecological impacts of coastal pollution and to apply data from multiple disciplines for improving decision making.

The research participant will have the opportunity to learn through interactions with individuals and teams involved in other cross-cutting human/environment projects at ACESD and other EPA divisions. With guidance from the mentor, the research participant will have latitude in exercising independent initiative and judgment in the research commensurate with the level of training. The research participant will have the opportunity to collaborate with EPA Regions, researchers, states, and local stakeholders to improve EPA's abilities in generating and translating decision-relevant social and ecological data to end-users.

The research participant will have the opportunity to attend research team meetings and be involved in all aspects of the research. This may include active engagement with stakeholders regarding applications of the research. There will be opportunities to develop and conduct projects within the overall research program, and to publish and present research.

The mentor for this opportunity is Nate Merrill (Merrill.nathaniel@epa.gov). 

The qualified candidate should have received a master's degree in one of the relevant fields, or be currently pursuing the degree and will reach completion by June 1, 2020. Degree must have been received within five years of the appointment start date.

Preferred skills:

If you have questions, send an email to EPArpp@orau.org.  Please include the reference code for this opportunity (EPA-ORD-NHEERL-AED-2020-01) in your email.