(Location: Remote or Hilo, HI or Honolulu, HI)
Job Overview: The California & Hawaii Climate Change Resource Assistant will add to the capacity of the Pacific Southwest Regional Office (headquarters for California and Hawaii/the Pacific Islands), the Pacific Southwest Research Station’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, and the USDA Southwest Climate Hub to respond effectively to climate change. With its diversity of partners, cultures, and ecosystems, Hawaii presents unique challenges and opportunities for addressing climate change at numerous scales. The Resource Assistant will assist with tool/resource development and extension in support of the USDA Forest Service Climate Action Plan (CAP) and Climate Action Tracker (CAT). This position is part of a cohort of 20 climate change-focused internships that will receive specialized training and opportunities to engage with other members of the cohort. This position is open to current undergraduate or graduate students or those who have graduated within two years from an institution of higher education. Applications are due by Thursday, March 30, 2023.
Visit https://info.manrrs.org/internship-application-rap to submit an application (scroll to the bottom of the page to submit your application materials.
Duration: 8 Month Fellowship (32 weeks) June 2023 – February 2024 (Expected Start Date: June 11, 2023)
Location: Remote or Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry (Hilo, HI or Honolulu, HI)
Supervision and the position duties are shared between the Region 5 Regional Office (Vallejo, CA) and the Pacific Southwest Research Station’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry or IPIF (Hilo, HI).
Reports To: The California & Hawaii Climate Change Resource Assistant will report to the R5 Ecosystem Services & Climate Change Program Lead and IPIF’s Research Ecologist.
Job Overview:
The California & Hawaii Climate Change Resource Assistant will add to the capacity of both the Pacific Southwest Regional Office (headquarters for California and Hawaii/the Pacific Islands) and the Pacific Southwest Research Station’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry to respond effectively to climate change. With its diversity of partners, cultures, and ecosystems, Hawaii presents unique challenges and opportunities for addressing climate change at numerous scales. The Resource Assistant will help the Region and Forests to build a solid foundation in response to the recently released USDA Forest Service Climate Action Plan (CAP) and Climate Action Tracker (CAT). This position is part of a cohort of 20 climate change-focused internships that will receive specialized training and opportunities to engage with other members of the cohort.
Responsibilities and Duties
The Resource Assistant will have the opportunity to work in two Deputy Areas (Research & Development and State & Private Forestry). The Resource Assistant will be working on a portfolio of tasks in support of climate change education/awareness, information synthesis and delivery, data compilation and presentation, and project implementation via a combination of internal/agency teams and external partnerships with both California- and Hawaii-based and national stakeholders.
The Resource Assistant will coordinate climate change activity and the production of outputs and solutions resulting from Hawaii Climate Exchange (HCE) activities, in coordination with the Region Regional Office, IPIF, and the USDA Southwest Climate Hub. This person will facilitate communication and coordination among HCE partners and end-users, and assist both with extension and outreach activities, with other entities in achieving HCE objectives.
Potential tasks and areas in need of support include:
- ● Linking HCE’s activities to upper-level management and decision-makers via regular attendance at local to regional science or resource management meetings
- ● Representing the HCE at formal society meetings, as well as other regional climate-focused meetings
- ● Developing and maintaining carbon-related pages on the HCE website
- ● Coordinating outreach to ensure information is shared and addresses practitioner needs
- ● Periodically assessing the effectiveness of the HCE in meeting the needs of users and stakeholders, while identifying new needs
- ● Organizing symposia at state meetings on climate management
- ● Managing grants, budgets, agendas, and reporting
- ● Collect existing and new research according to practitioner needs, and developing and disseminating research-based extension information and products for practitioner use
- ● Helping guide researcher’s efforts to develop webinars for practitioners
- ● Leading or assisting with grant writing for management-driven or ideally co-produced carbon research projects and implement funded research proposals.
Occasional travel may be required, not to exceed 20% time.
Qualifications
The ideal Resource Assistant would have the following knowledge/skills/abilities:
- ● College- and/or graduate-level coursework in climate change and/or environmental science is essential, along with coursework in another field directly related to land management, such as biology, hydrology, forestry, land use planning, or sociology. A Bachelor’s degree is required.
- ● Knowledge of: climate change patterns across California and Hawaii; the biophysical basis for these changes; and interactions with other threats in the region including drought, wildfire, and invasive species.
- ● Skills in: communicating climate change to both professional and lay audiences; convening diverse groups of professionals (agency, non-profit, private sector) for purposes of coordinating climate change information exchange and planning; and synthesizing input from partners and external experts on climate change and producing summaries for consideration by partner organizations.
- ● Abilities relating to: working as part of a team and being able to fill multiple team roles; working under supervision of multiple team co-leads while independently operating as a member of that team; creatively contributing to climate change-related outcomes described above.
- ● Additional skills desired: tangible evidence of leadership traits; passion for sustainability and climate change (both adaptation and mitigation); able to navigate new/challenging processes; and experienced with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint.
Minimum Requirements
- ● Completion of a Bachelor’s degree, or higher.
- ● US citizenship or permanent residency.
- o Resource Assistants must undergo a government background check if selected.
- ● Participation in USDA Forest Service Resource Assistant Program Orientation scheduled for June 2023 (1 week) in the Denver, Colorado area.
