Rocky Mountain Research Station

Rocky Mountain Research Station

USDA Forest Service

OUTREACH NOTICE

Statistician – GS-1530-12 - Permanent

Position #: 15-RES-154653DP-AL

The National Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, intends to fill a Statistician, GS-1529-12,PERMANENT position focused on Quality Assurance/Quality Control of FIA data.

DUTY STATION: This position will be located at one of the four FIA Unit Headquarters in Ogden UT, Portland OR, Knoxville TN, or Newtown Square, PA. The final determination of official duty station will be made after a successful candidate is identified. Interested candidates can visit the National FIA Program website at:

MAJOR DUTIES:

The National QA Coordinatorserves as a professional consultant to scientists and professional and technical staff in all areas of research planning, data collection, information managementand the choice and application of statistical methods and techniques toward the improvement of quality outputs. The incumbent conducts comprehensive technical reviews of study plans, research, and analysis with regard to statistics and associated quality assurance specializations. This individual serves as an expert in the field of quality assurance and identifies specific processes, checks, statistical tools, and organizational models for application to the program of work. The incumbent identifies gaps in the current methodology and develops an overarching QA model.

The QA Coordinator leads the national program or region to develop a comprehensive system of quality assurance that spans the planning of data collection and analysis, the repeatability and precision of field measurements, the models/equations used to estimate and summarize forest attributes, and the statistical techniques used to summarize and report on forest characteristics. The QA Coordinator is a leader that ties together disparate individual unit or subregion QA checks, tools, and processes to develop a consistent, standardized QA system that will be agreed upon and used in all units or subregions.

The QA Coordinator works with technical teams, regional managers, and subject matter experts to assist in implementation of QA protocols. The incumbent assists regional QA personnel with region-specific issues related to national consistency in implementation of their individual QA programs.

Upon request, provides statistical reviews of manuscripts. Keeps abreast of new developments in statistical methodology and theory in order to assure that efficient and proper statistical procedures are used to design experiments and analyze data.

Writes computer programs (in SAS or R, or a programing language such as FORTRAN, Java, or C) to generate statistically appropriate analyses, tables, plots, graphs and charts needed by research scientists to understand their data. Maintains several statistical analysis programs (some of which might be web-based) that are a critical part of the Unit’s technology transfer effort.

Keeps abreast of new developments in statistical and graphical software packages. Suggests methods for handling analyses for which no software is currently readily available. This may require the development of computer programs to perform the analyses.

Is able to import/export data between statistical software packages and scientists’ software, which in some cases may be non-standard. The incumbent must make an on-going effort to understand current developments in the field as they apply to the station’s areas of research. Performs other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: Those who are interested must meet the qualification requirements for the GS-1530 series that are covered by the U. S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Group Coverage Qualification Standards for General Schedule Qualifications System positions. The OPM Qualification Standards Handbook Manual is available for review at any federal personnel office or on the Internet at:

Primary Contact: Mr. Eric Volkman

Phone Number: 801-625-5371

E-mail address:

If you are interested in this position and have questions please contact bySeptember 8, 2015.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all of its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA's Target Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY PROVIDER AND EMPLOYER.

REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION: The USDA Forest Service provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, please contact the point of contact listed above. The decision on granting reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.

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