Clarification from the agency

Open to the public Career transition (CTAP, ICTAP, RPL)

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As a Research Statistician, some of your specific duties will include:

• Develop innovative methods of statistical analysis to address non-standard problems that arise from the complexity of ecological data, such as latent variables, non-normal distributions, over-dispersion, and random effects.
• Work across the disciplinary boundaries of ecology and statistics to solve problems that challenge current methods to meet goals for reliability, precision, and timeliness of results from NMFS monitoring and research on marine mammals and other protected species.
• Direct marine and wildlife scientists in designing data collection protocols to optimize compatibility with contemporary analytical techniques, weighing analysis time and effort against performance, and identifying new alternatives.
• Communicate key findings and methodological developments in appropriate technical detail to a range of audiences such as scientific peers, agency management officials, and the lay public, and regularly publish new advances in statistical theory and analytical methods in peer-reviewed professional journals.
• Serve as a technical expert in the field of ecological statistics, addressing conservation concerns.

Conditions of employment

This position is located within the Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) with one vacancy located in Seattle, WA or Juneau, AK.

This position will be filled under the DOC Alternative Personnel Systems (CAPS). This system replaces the Federal GS pay plan and structure. Under CAPS, positions are classified by career, pay plan, and pay band.

The ZP-3 is equivalent to the GS-11/12. The ZP-4 is equivalent to the GS-13/14.

Key Requirements:

1. Applicants must be U.S. Citizens.
2. Suitable for Federal employment, as determined by background investigation.
3. A three-year probationary period for research positions may be required.
4. More requirements are listed under Qualifications and Other Information.
5. Must be registered for Selective Service, if applicable (ww.sss.gov)

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENT (ZP-4 Only): Incumbent must be able to lift loads up to 50lbs. unassisted, and participate in the capture and handling of aggressive, wild animals. Incumbent must be capable of working on isolated, rough terrain in potentially harsh weather conditions and able to participate in field assignments of up to three weeks in duration.

NOTE:

• Payment of relocation expenses is not authorized.
• The ZP-3 level requires a Low-Risk security clearance. The ZP-4 level requires a Moderate-Risk security clearance.
• This position is in the bargaining unit. This position is covered by IFPTE Local 8.

• A background investigation will be required for this position. Continued employment will be subject to the applicant's successful completion of a background security investigation and favorable adjudication. Failure to successfully meet these requirements will be grounds for termination.
• Throughout the recruitment and hiring process we will be communicating with you via email; therefore, it is imperative that the email address you provide when applying for this vacancy remains active. Should your email address change, please notify the point of contact identified in the vacancy announcement as soon as possible so that we can update our system.

Qualifications

Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at: https://www.opm.gov/policy.

BASIC REQUIREMENTS: This position has a positive Education Requirement in addition to at least one year of Specialized Experience OR substitution of education for experience OR combination (if applicable) in order to be found minimally qualified. Transcripts must be submitted with your application package. You MUST meet the following requirements:

To qualify at the 1530 series:

A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc.

OR

B. Combination of education and experience: courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: In addition to meeting the basic requirement applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. This experience need not have been in the federal government.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations e.g., professional; philanthropic, religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies; knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

To qualify at the ZP-3 or GS-11 level:

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: One full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZP-2 or GS-09 in the Federal service. Specialized experience MUST include all of the following:

• Using advanced statistical methods to design ecological experiments to gather quantitative data; and
• Writing code in established software to conduct statistical analysis with advanced methods that are used to assess animal populations such as time series, spatial statistics, capture-recapture, distance sampling, or animal movement models.

-OR-

SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION: Master's or equivalent graduate degree.

-OR-

COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: A combination of education and experience as described above.

NOTE: Only graduate education in excess of one year is qualifying for combination.

To qualify at the ZP-4 or GS-13 level:

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: One full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZP-3 or GS-12 in the Federal service. Specialized experience MUST include all of the following:

• Designing new methods of statistical analysis and developing novel programs in advanced languages such as R, e.g. the development of models for animal movement, or mark-recapture analyses.
• Publishing novel quantitative methods in peer-reviewed literature.
• Instructing junior staff on statistical methodology.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Veteran's Preference does not apply to direct hire recruitment procedures.

Any selections made under this notice will be processed as new appointments to the civil service. Therefore, Current Federal employees would be given new appointments to the civil service and may have to serve a new probationary period under CFR 315.802 (b).

NOTE: A one-year probationary period will be required under the Direct Hire Authority unless you are a current Department of Commerce employee and are in the same line of work and with no more than a 30-day break in service.