Wildfire Data Scientist

at  Government of Alberta

JOB INFORMATION

Job Requisition ID: 63663
Ministry: Forestry and Parks
Location: Edmonton (other locations may be considered)
Full or Part-Time: Full Time
Hours of Work: 36.25 hours per week
Permanent/Temporary: Permanent
Scope: Open Competition
Closing Date: November 7, 2024
Classification: Program Services 3 Market Adjustment
Salary: $2,626.89 to $3,448.73 bi-weekly ($68,561.82 - $90,011.85/year)
As the Ministry of Forestry and Parks we are responsible for growing Alberta’s environmentally responsible wood products and forestry sector. We protect Alberta’s forests from wildfire and preserve our provincial parks for the recreation and enjoyment of Albertans. As well as enabling access to public lands for recreational and commercial purposes while prioritizing conservation. Forestry and Parks also manages public lands and balances sustainable rangelands and grazing leases for Alberta producers.
For more information about the Wildfire Management Branch:

QUALIFICATIONS

Minimum Requirements:
A University 4-year degree in a related field, plus 2 years progressively responsible related experience or a Diploma with 4 years of experience or equivalent as described below. Related fields include data scientist, research, and data management.

Equivalency: Directly related education or experience considered based on:

• 1 year of education for 1 year of experience; or
• 1 year of experience for 1 year of education.

Additional Requirements:

• Experience using a computer programming language like Python, or a comparable software.
• Experience in data engineering principles (collection, storage, processing, quality control, visualization, and documentation).
• Experience in scientific research, principles and methodologies and working with complex data sets.

Assets:

• Experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data analysis.
• Experience in GitHub.
• Any exposure to wildfire operations or prevention.
• Excellent communication skills to effectively interact with a wide range of stakeholders by participating on working groups and project teams, delivering presentations, and producing written guidelines, procedures, and technical document.
• Experience in articulating applicable scientific advancements in nontechnical terms.

Minimum recruitment standards outline the minimum education and experience required for appointment to a job classification. Refer to

Are you keen to learn and develop your skills? Do you have a passion for research, data engineering (collection, storage, processing, quality control, visualization, and documentation) and supporting Alberta Wildfire in planning and operational decision making?
Do you see opportunities to develop and expand your knowledge of wildfire into the subject matter expert as a data scientist for Alberta Wildfire and create a vision to help Predictive Services support the branch with questions and intelligence related to fire behaviour, fire science, data analytics and technology? If so, then consider applying to the Predictive Services team within the Intelligence Unit.
Reporting to the Wildfire Intelligence Program Lead, your role is responsible for advancing the organization’s business intelligence and developing innovative solutions that address complex, high impact emergency response and strategic planning needs for Alberta Wildfire.
As the Wildfire Data Scientist, you will use the three pillars of research, data engineering and domain knowledge (wildfire) to develop small tools or products for the entire branch. Drawing on your research and coding skills, your time will be focused on data engineering, visualization, and analysis to effectively convey data and findings in a unique way, creating opportunities for storytelling to a broad audience of internal and external partners.
Your ability to communicate clearly using data graphs, dashboards, and reports is essential. You can automate data visualizations that take complex information and make it more accessible, understandable, and usable to derive insights and enable better business decisions. Your position will provide support to all the wildfire managers by use of data linking and complete statistical analysis and system-based models. Working with wildfire models, GIS and other programs like Python, you will create new processes and or tools, data layers, as well as present figures, trends, and statistics for requested reports.
With a focus on enhancing, updating, and looking to the future of Predictive Services, you will provide the most pertinent and updated information for suppression and pre-suppression activities.

As the Wildfire Data Scientist, you will be responsible for incorporating knowledge of data science and technical skills into the Predictive Services Unit by:

• As the wildfire data scientist, your role within Predictive Services will help shape the unit in a way that meets the business needs for data science.
• Programming (ex. Python, etc.) to create small-scale tools, processes, or automation of data to enhance Predictive Services capacity to provide information to multiple stakeholders (internal and external partners).
• Data analytics and analysis using point and geospatial data.
• Visualization of data in various formats (ex. Power Bi dashboards).
• Building strong relationships with the key pillar of Predictive Services (weather, fire behaviour and geospatial services) to build streamlined services in supporting wildfire management.
• Collaborating is important to you, and you can participate on internal departmental project teams as well as external teams.
• Providing oversight to analysis techniques with particular emphasis on process management and quality control as well as fulfil a technical specialist role during fire season.

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