Arusha, Tanzania

Location is flexible with TNC country offices in Latin America & Africa (Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania)

Since 1951, The Nature Conservancy has been doing work you can believe in protecting the lands and waters that all life depends on. As a science-based organization, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that we can create a world in which people and nature thrive.

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Although you’ll see requirements in our postings, we recognize that people come with talent and experiences outside of a job. Passion, innovation, and diversity are all key components to advancing our Mission and we encourage you to apply.

The Freshwater Science Technical Lead provides technical execution and project management for science outputs as a member of TNC’s Resilient Watersheds strategy & upcoming Nature for Water Technical Assistance Facility team. This role will support local TNC and partner field programs to build and scale watershed investment programs relying on Nature-based Solutions (NbS).

The Freshwater Science Technical Lead assists local TNC and partner field programs in a range of geographies with designing, implementing, and evaluating conservation investment programs that deliver water security and healthy ecosystem outcomes. This work involves executing primary scientific analyses, project management against defined timelines, coordinating inputs across partner subject matter experts, incorporating feedback from local stakeholders, and ensuring the quality of finalized scientific outputs. In particular, this position will provide project management and technical execution support for projects promoting NbS for water security, including aspects relating to hydrology, geographic information systems, prioritization & optimization algorithms, land use / land cover evaluation, and monitoring & evaluation program development.

• Leads science project management workstreams to support NbS for water security outcomes, in particular spatial analyses of watershed management options, hydrological modeling and associated ecosystem service evaluation, NbS portfolio prioritization studies, inputs to return-on-investment analyses and design of monitoring & evaluation programs.
• Integrates multiple scientific workstreams and ensures overall integrity of data and modeling architecture.
• Expertly applies commonly used hydrological modeling and spatial analytical tools.
• Collaborates with partners (in particular, watershed stakeholders) from diverse backgrounds and geographies to incorporate their perspectives and develop interdisciplinary scientific products.
• Communicates scientific results to technical and lay audiences.
• Delivers project outputs in a range of geographic and data quality contexts.
• Manages contract vendors including issuing terms of reference, managing contractor workflows, and ensuring integrity of final outputs.
• Presents technical science outputs and outcomes in stakeholder meetings, publications, and conference settings.
• Collaborates with Nature for Water Facility knowledge management staff to refine standard processes, procedures, & templates over time.
• May require frequent travel domestically and/or internationally and evening and weekend hours.

• Master’s Degree in civil or environmental engineering, environmental science, environmental geography, hydrology or related field and 2 years of experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience leading and working with cross functional teams.
• Experience synthesizing, interpreting and communicating scientific information.
• Experience preparing reports of findings.
• Experience working and communicating with a wide range of people.
• Experienced in project management planning and techniques, including elaborating clear workplans, managing to deadlines.
• Experience in hydrological modeling.
• Excellent command of the English language, both written and spoken.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 4+ years of professional experience, preferably within water sector consultancies and/or water resource management.
• PhD degree in civil or environmental engineering, environmental science, environmental geography, hydrology, or related discipline.
• Hydrological modeling expertise, such as: SWAT, WEAP, HEC-HMS, InVEST, MODFLOW.
• Programming / statistical expertise, including: Python, R, MATLAB, Google Earth Engine.
• Spatial analysis expertise, including: ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Earth Engine.
• Visualization expertise, including: Tableau, ArcGIS Online.
• Professional experience in NbS project design and implementation.
• Record of peer-reviewed publications and grey literature (non-peer reviewed) specific to the field of water resource management and NbS.
• Communication skills in articulating complex scientific concepts / outputs to non-technical audiences.
• Stakeholder facilitation & human-centered designed skills.
• Experience working in data-poor environments.
• Ability to work effectively on multiple concurrent projects.
• Multi-language skills (in particular, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Swahili).