Employment Opportunities
Junior Specialist - UCNRS Biodiversity Project: Field Coordinator (Part-Time, 50%)
- Open date: September 2, 2025
- Next review date: Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.
- Final date: Wednesday, December 31, 2025 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time). Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.
Position Description
Junior Specialist - UCNRS Biodiversity Project: Field Coordinator (Part-Time, 50%)
The UC Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) is the largest and most diverse network of university field stations in the world. Its 42 reserves include examples of most major ecosystems in California. These reserves provide secure sites for long-term environmental research, education, and public outreach. They enable monitoring of environmental data and provide a baseline for biodiversity, in the context of California’s growing population and a changing global environment.
The California Sentinel Site Network (CA-SSN) is a partnership between the UCNRS and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), with other public and private land partners joining in the coming year. The CA-SSN aims to achieve conservation goals established by California 30x30 legislation. With nearly 100 planned biodiversity monitoring locations across the state, the CA-SSN will deliver open-access standardized biodiversity and climate data that will support university, agency, and NGO research to advance conservation and resource management solutions. In the next three years, UCNRS will establish roughly 160 monitoring sites across the 42 reserves. These sites will become long-term monitoring sites.
The UCNRS at UC Davis is seeking a skilled Field Coordinator to join our team for CA-SSN. The ideal candidate will help to deploy biodiversity monitoring equipment across the UCNRS, assist with data collection, management, and analytics across CA-SSN, and in collaboration with the PI and Project Lead, help further biodiversity studies by aiding in interdisciplinary studies of remote sensing technologies and/or experimental methodology to sample herpetofauna, insects, and/or plants across California ecosystems.
Qualifications
- Basic qualifications (required at time of application)
- Bachelor’s degree in Biology, Ecology, Environmental Science, or a related field.
- Experience in field research or biological surveying.
- Familiarity with invertebrates and associated sampling methods.
- Proficiency in data collection, QC, and summary statistics.
- Strong observational skills and attention to detail.
- Ability to work in challenging outdoor conditions.
- Flexibility to travel and work irregular hours as required by field projects.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
- Preferred qualifications (other preferred, but not required, qualifications for the position)
- Proficiency in the use of camera traps and/or acoustic monitoring systems.
- Background in eDNA or invertebrate sampling identification.
Major Responsibilities
- I. Research (60%)
- The ideal candidate will work with Project PI to plan site visits and deploy biodiversity equipment at ~40 field sampling locations at field stations within the UCNRS.
- The Field Coordinator will need to determine how to preconfigure and set up biodiversity equipment and other hardware for monitoring following established protocols, such as malaise traps and pitfall traps.
- The Field Coordinator will need to collect environmental data and organismal samples (insects, fungi, and bacteria) using new field sampling techniques at each of these sites. This will require learning how to perform aquatic and terrestrial habitat sampling for eDNA and aquatic macroinvertebrates using established protocols.
- The Field Coordinator will also work alongside multiple student volunteers (2-10) and help coordinate their involvement with sampling events and data collection.
- The Field Coordinator must document findings through detailed notes, photographs, and emails, keeping track of all field data, and organizing it as it is collected using predetermined databases and repositories. As well as collecting and managing datasets, including QA/QC and performing summaries and analyses of CA-SSN biodiversity data.
- The Field Coordinator will assist the PI with preparing data for analyses, summarizing data, and drafting documents to present the work.
- Professional Competence and Activity (20%)
- Review current literature or reports that advance work related to the project. In collaboration with other project participants (undergraduates, government, NGO, and academic), work to disseminate key findings that advance the project (posters or oral presentations at conferences). To further increase the impact of the project, engage in local workshops and seminars. If time persists, assess new sampling methods and technologies that align with the goals of the project.
- University and Public Service (20%)
- The Field Coordinator will participate in NRS outreach opportunities and work with the PI to engage campus and government partners, as allowed by the funding source.
Salary and Benefits
The salary range estimate for this position is $55,000.00, at Step 1 or $58,600 at Step 2.