[Hiring] Senior Climate & Soil Health Scientist @AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST

Role Description

Reporting to the National Climate and Soil Health Director, the Senior Climate and Soil Health Scientist supports AFT’s Climate and Soil Health Program by advancing connectivity across research, science translation, partnerships, and implementation strategies that accelerate adoption of resilient soil health management systems. This includes a core focus on biochar integration, as well as other climate-beneficial approaches.

The position supports AFT’s efforts to catalyze a new conventional agriculture: empowering farmers and ranchers across the nation’s diverse systems to achieve on-farm and societal benefits from systems that are soil health promoting, biodiverse, climate-neutral or better, resilient, equitable, and environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable.

Qualifications

• Significant scientific, technical, and applied on-farm expertise in soil health, soil function, and interactions among production systems, soils, climatic conditions, and management.
• Familiarity with soil systems modeling as well as with microbial, ecological, and other soil science processes.
• Advanced understanding of soil health management systems implementation, biochar opportunities and challenges, and environmental co-benefits.
• Experience advancing soil health management systems through development and application of models, tools, and decision support resources.
• Demonstrated success conducting independent research and executing complex technical tasks and quantitative analyses.
• Proficient in literature review, synthesis of scientific information, and regular evaluation of emerging soil health research.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for inter-organizational and inter-disciplinary team collaboration.
• Demonstrated experience and success in grant writing and other forms of fundraising.

Requirements

• Demonstrated success in developing partnerships with researchers, farmers and ranchers, advisors, non-profits, corporations, and government agencies.
• Dedicated to practicing, learning, and advancing efforts to expand access to resources among small, limited resource, beginning and other farmers.
• Proficient trainer, facilitator, communicator, and public speaker.
• Adept at developing educational materials and communicating complex scientific concepts.
• Ability to do high quality, independent work in a dynamic organization under time pressure.
• Proven history overseeing research and/or project implementation and delivery on time and within budget.
• High emotional intelligence and demonstrated ability to collaborate and motivate others.
• Exceptional organizational and communication skills.
• Commitment to shared learning, creativity, innovation, and problem solving.

Benefits

• Insurance coverage begins the 1st of the month following the date of hire.
• Medical & Prescription Coverage
• Dental Coverage
• Vision Coverage
• Company Paid Life Insurance & Long-Term Disability (LTD)
• Voluntary Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) – Healthcare & Dependent Care
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• 401k Plan
• Sick Leave: Regular full-time employees accrue 13 “sick days” per year.
• Vacation Leave: Accrue 15 days during the first year increasing by one day per year to 20 days per year maximum.
• Holidays: AFT observes twelve fixed holidays and a week between Christmas and New Years off during the year.