Job Description

Staff - Non Union

Job Category M&P - AAPS

Job Profile AAPS Salaried - Statistical Analysis, Level A

Job Title Data Scientist

Department Research | Knox Lab | Department of Geography

Compensation Range $6,068.92 - $8,724.25 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date December 1, 2023

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the Posting End Date above.

Job End Date Jan 7, 2025

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary

The Department of Geography at UBC is a world leading research department, and home to outstanding teaching practice. We take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the natural environment, and our goal is cutting-edge research that matters and makes a difference, intellectually and practically. As we continue to study the earth system, the volume of Big Earth Data continues to increase. However, how to best manage, catalogue, analyze and share this exponentially increasing volume of data requires expertise in Data Science.

The purpose of the Data Scientist position within the UBC Micrometeorology Lab is to provide expertise in areas of databases, data visualization, data handling and storage, data analysis, and statistics to the research team and its collaborators. The Data Scientist will both plan and execute data science within grant-funded research projects and translate research results into solutions and produce practical applications that will benefit carbon monitoring across Canada. The Data Scientist will work with researchers across the country to make their datasets more readily available by designing data pipelines and automation to ensure high quality, standardized, and readily available data across the current network of micrometeorological stations in Canada.

Organizational Status
The Data Scientist will be working with Dr. Sara Knox (Geography) on a project integrating and synthesizing Canada\xe2\x80\x99s eddy covariance carbon flux measurements. This work is conducted in partnership with WWF-Canada as part of their project on Carbon Monitoring in Canada. The work is conducted in the Department of Geography on UBC Point Grey Campus, with some opportunities to travel domestically and internationally for conferences and workshops.

Work Performed

• Create and maintain optimal data pipeline architecture for flux tower data across Canada.
• Automate data pipelines, optimize data delivery, and streamline internal processes to provide users with high quality flux data.
• Identify and apply the appropriate tools to efficiently collect, clean, and prepare large volumes of complex data for analysis.
• Build analytics and data visualization tools that utilize the database to provide insights into the data collected across sites and allow researchers to assess the quality of their data.
• Work with researcher and stakeholders to strive for greater functionality in our data systems.
• Research result presentation and publishing.
• Research grant writing/submission.
• May monitor work of or supervise research and support research staff and students.

Consequence of Error/Judgement
A high level of judgment is associated with this position. Errors in data analyses or in the maintenance of, and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of, data could result in a waste of financial resources, non-renewal or research funding, or loss of currently held funding. Inadequate documentation, organization, communication and planning may adversely affect the image and reputation of the research team, departments, and university.

Supervision Received
You will work in collaboration with other research staff in the team, and will receive input and guidance from your study director. You are expected to be accountable for completing reliable work in a timely fashion.

Supervision Given
May supervise graduate and undergraduate research assistants and oversee the work of local research partners.

Minimum Qualifications
Post-graduate degree in Statistics. Minimum of two years of related experience in research analysis, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one\xe2\x80\x99s own.

- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one\xe2\x80\x99s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Preferred Qualifications

• Five or more years of experience in the field of data science/data engineering or equivalent combination of education/experience.
• Extensive experience developing data platforms or data pipelines without oversight.
• Basic coding/data analysis skills in R, Python, Matlab.
• Demonstrated data visualization experience with R or Python .
• Demonstrated experience with version control (Git and Github preferred).
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as a team member.
• Demonstrated ability to work on multiple projects at a time.
• Advanced coding skills in R and Python and other languages (notably Matlab).
• Demonstrated experience with web scraping.
• Basic web development knowledge (familiarity with HTML, CSS, and/or javascript).
• Experience with cloud computing.
• Record of grant awards.

University of British Columbia