Senior Biodiversity Modelling Scientist (Marine & Terrestrial Land Use)

Location: Hybrid, Cambridge – two to four days per month.
Salary: up to £54K + 12% pension, private healthcare and life insurance.

Key skills: programming and data modelling, fund-raising, publishing in scientific journals

How would you like to use your data modelling skills to influence global strategies toward stabilising our climate and repairing the damage we’ve done?

When it comes to climate and the effect human activities are having it’s clear we need a better understanding of our actions and their outcomes, including solutions and how, when or where to implement them for maximum effect.

This role will require candidates to have a PhD or have been published in scientific journals, as it’s a science-heavy role where studies and results will be published, and knowledge of that world is essential in having the influence that is needed across the global community.

This isn’t a traditional data scientist role. It’ll include leading fundraising efforts and candidates will need to demonstrate having put together some successful proposals and understand the process of closing a funding deal.

Networking and building partnerships with people across conservation organisations will also be a part of this role once you’re settled, including at conferences and heavy collaboration with partners on systems modelling for global, regional and sometimes nationally focused projects.

So, varied is a fair description and it’s quite essential for you to have worked with international organisations in some capacity, as there are hundreds of partners you’ll provide data services for.

Alongside that, you’ll do the stuff you’re no doubt excited by;

✊ Advancing biodiversity futures modelling capabilities and developing projects in the field.

✊ Developing a strategy for future modelling, considering what we need to prioritise to have a maximum impact globally and regionally.

✊ Lead high-profile modelling and analysis projects in line with a global vision of Science Innovation.

You’ll model biodiversity and ecosystem futures scenarios, considering large and small factors that contribute to climate change, and establishing patterns and potentially unknown values in the data you wrangle.

An understanding of (or experience with) ecological models in terrestrial or marine environments or exp. with statistical biodiversity, models are also quite key.

Technically you’ll need to show familiarity or experience with R, Python, C++, Matlab or other tools and tech used for data science. Experience or understanding of remote sensing is also necessary.

Spoken languages are super helpful because of the diverse international nature of the teams and organisations you’ll support.

They will be open to people with commercial experience working in relevant fields, so long as you can demonstrate how human activities impact species, regions or specific environments.

You’ll help to build accurate predictions of outcomes and build valuable data insights into the critical databases the organisation manage, which include areas of high scientific value, unique biodiversity, endangered species, resource trafficking and more.

Your colleagues will be dedicated and highly qualified. Eager to share their knowledge and absorb yours. The organisation love people with great initiative and a desire to forge careers on their own terms.

They’ll support you in learning new skills, and pay for resources whether that be books, online courses or conference tickets, but they need people who are driven and can make suggestions based on self-learning or networks and events. Those aren’t essential, but folks who can contribute in many ways will always stand out.