Director, Community Science

Position Summary:

The Director, Community Science role at Audubon’s national science team is responsible for managing, promoting, and innovating Audubon’s current and future Community Science programs, including Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC), Climate Watch (CW) and Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) programs. These activities should contribute directly to advancing Audubon’s new strategic Flight Plan, including its community building milestone. This position reports to the Senior Director, Climate and Community Science. The Director, Community Science, serves as project lead, working closely with the Manager, Community Science to ensure that all project deadlines, materials and trainings development, promotion activities, program assessments, data submission management, and other deliverables are on track. This position is responsible for advancing our community science work, both in terms of our three current national community science, any potential future national programs, and advising staff across the organization on design and administration of local community science activities. The last of these may include leading a community science community of practice across Audubon.  In addition, this position also will seek to develop innovative science, pursue funding opportunities to support community science programs, execute strategic expansion of programs, and elevate Audubon’s community science programs and associated data products to both public and scientific communities. This position will also work closely internally within science to form cross-functional teams with the quantitative, spatial, climate, and migratory birds to advance community science.

Compensation:

Salary range based on geo-differentials:

• $90,000-$105,000/year = National

• $100,000-$115,000/year = Alaska, CA (not San Francisco), Connecticut, D.C., Chicago, Oyster Bay, NY

• $110,000-$130,000/year = NYC (not Oyster Bay), San Francisco, Seattle

Essential Functions:

• Serve as Director of Audubon’s iconic Christmas Bird Count program, Audubon’s Climate Watch program, the Great Backyard Bird Count and any other current, or future, community science programs.

• Supervise regular and intern staff through establishment of work objectives and priorities, reviewing and revising these objectives on an ongoing basis to guide and mentor team members in their work progress. 

• Manage all aspects of community science programs, including planning and design of programs and timeline for delivery of each aspect of the programs: including the development of resource materials and presentation of training webinars and other medium to volunteers of programs as needed, leading and coordinating with the Manager, Community Science

• Assure science integrity and inference of each community science program.

• Develop strategies for maintaining and expanding community science programs and execute strategic expansion of programs by identifying key geographic and demographic areas across the hemisphere as related to the Flight Plan Community Building milestone

• Elevate Audubon’s community science programs and associated data products to both public and scientific communities through peer-reviewed science papers and reports and communicate content to diverse audiences through presentations, interviews, conferences, or meetings.

• Coordinate with Audubon’s Technology, GIS, Content, and Director of Digital Science and Data Products to update community science technology and data visualizations. through developing new data products and visualizations and coordinating opportunities for storytelling around them.

• Fundraise, including leading public funding grants, to maintain, enhance or expand community science programs at Audubon

• Curate the annual summary for the Christmas Bird count and manage and contribute to content on other community science programs, the Audubon website, and eNewsletter American Birds.

• Support the Manager, Community science, in volunteer support by email to volunteers, coordinators, and chapters for community science programs.

• Develop strategies for evaluation of the programs and contribute to successful program rollout each season by tracking master program timeline and convening project check-ins as needed.

• Evaluate and identify improved workflows for community science programs to increase efficiency of program delivery

• Coordinate with Migration Science and Network teams on a strategy to engage Audubon Chapters in the Bird Tracking Program through contributions to the Motus network.

• Develop strategy for regular cadence of communicating results and data back to community science volunteers from CBC, CW, GBBC and Motus

• Develop a plan to advance accessible, inclusive, and welcoming community science strategies through partnerships, training opportunities, and accessibility resources.

• Identify strategies to engage volunteers on all programs, and work to engage new and diverse audiences.

• Build and maintain relationships with leaders across Audubon that are designing and implementing community science. Provide expertise and where possible standardization of approaches. This may include developing a community science community of practice across Audubon.

• Pursue funding opportunities, including grants, to sustain and grow national and regional community science programs.

• Help foster and build partnerships with scientists and staff in academic institutions, NGOs, state and federal agencies.

• Partner with Audubon staff to ensure that equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging principles are incorporated and followed in all aspects of our work.

• Other job-related duties as assigned.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in social science, ecology, environmental science, education, or related field. PhD preferred.

• 10+ years of related experience. An equivalent combination of education and experience will also be considered.

• Proven track record conducting scientific research on community science related to biodiversity, and the ability to translate research into relevant materials to conservation as well as into peer reviewed publications.

• Demonstrated experience with successful program project management, including coordinating projects across multiple collaborators or scaling up programs and projects to broader reaching scales.

• Experience managing and developing community science programs.

• Excellent communication and public speaking skills; experience presenting to general audiences and speaking with media a plus.

• An effective leader who possesses emotional intelligence, one with the ability to work independently or with teams of colleagues across several different divisions, disciplines, and work locations.

• Demonstrated leadership skills, including the ability to collaborate with partners, and manager teams and projects effectively.

• Comfortable in a fast-paced environment, able to juggle a variety of tasks, and able to work independently to re-prioritize tasks.

• Experience working in or volunteering with a science organization strongly preferred.

• Training and assessment experience working with volunteers strongly preferred.

• General knowledge of the birds of North America required; experience in the birding community preferred.

• Track-record in writing about birds, birding and bird conservation a plus.

• Track-record with securing funding for scientific or program support a plus.

• Basic proficiency in Geospatial Information Science (GIS) using Esri ArcGIS tools required.

• Proficiency in database manipulation and data entry required.

• Proficiency scripting in R a plus

• Past participation in a Community Science (aka Citizen Science or Participatory Science) project preferred.

• Demonstrated personal and professional commitment to and experience in advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

• Interest in working to promote bird conservation across the US and Americas, and passion for the mission of the National Audubon Society.

• Travel expected 5-15% of the time.

EEO Statement

The National Audubon Society is a federal contractor and an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. We are committed to a policy of nondiscrimination, inclusion and equal opportunity and actively seek a diverse pool of candidates in this search.

Accessibility Statement

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