REDD+ Technical Specialist - Consultant

Position Title: REDD+ Technical Specialist - Consultant

Location: US Hybrid

Department: Environment and Energy

Unit: Ecosystem Services

BACKGROUND

Winrock International is recruiting a REDD+ Technical Specialist in a consultant capacity in the Ecosystem Services Unit (ECO) within the Environment & Energy Group (E2). Winrock is a non-profit organization that works around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment. Winrock’s E2 Group is comprised of three complimentary units: Ecosystem Services, Clean Energy, and Forestry and Natural Resource Management. An active participant within the team, the Technical Consultant will play a key role in fostering a collaborative environment that promotes growth, respect, equity, and thought leadership.

Ecosystem Services Unit (ECO)

ECO forms the cornerstone of Winrock’s scientific leadership and has been at the cutting edge of the evaluation of ecosystem services from forests and agriculture for 25 years. ECO excels at the translation and application of science to benefit countries, businesses, organizations, and people. Winrock employs state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies to generate and distil information for resource managers, land use planners, communities, and industries for use in low emission and climate resiliency development and spatial planning, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission estimation, habitat mapping and restoration. Winrock is a leading innovator in applied climate and landscape sciences, distinguished by our pragmatic and scientifically robust methodologies.

ECO’s portfolio is focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), Low Emissions Development, environmental services, and related topics. ECO has long served as a global leader in ecosystem evaluation, carbon accounting, climate change mitigation and adaptation, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, plus the sustainable management of forests, and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. watershed management, and other forms of environmental services accounting. The REDD+ Technical Specialist - Consultant will work closely with ECO's Senior Technical Lead providing support for various REDD+ projects within the unit, developing and implementing technical projects, providing quality control and preparing technical reports.

POSITION SUMMARY

The REDD+ Technical Specialist – Consultant serves as a technical officer and contributes to proposals and business development efforts across ECO team projects in the areas of GHG measurement and monitoring, climate change mitigation and adaptation, climate risk analysis, and ecosystem evaluation.  

This position will interact with clients, conduct qualitative technical analyses, perform quantitative problem-solving, and collect and analyze quantitative data.

Specific project activities may include: 

• Conducting GHG measurement and monitoring activities for companies, governments, and NGOs around the world. 
• Developing forest inventory design, carbon measurement, and monitoring protocols. 
• Building capacity building toolkits and training programs for ecosystem assessments.
• Creating decision-support tools for the measurement and monitoring of GHG emissions and ecosystem services in the land use and forestry sectors. 

This position may be based remotely within the United States but is expected to work East Coast hours (EST).

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES

• Contribute to the GHG measurement and monitoring in forest systems. Perform calculations using greenhouse gas and activity data on AFOLU projects.
• Support with carbon accounting and credit yield estimation for REDD+ projects.
• Conduct innovative approaches and rigorous analyses and employ analytical methods and interpretations of international policy relevant to the work of ECO, particularly REDD+.
• Implement statistically sound approaches to project design and data analysis for carbon, including use of field data, new statistical tools, and models.
• Prepare technical analysis reports, presentations, and other communication materials related to carbon accounting, translating technical topics into terms that are meaningful to more diverse audiences.
• Provide training to counterparts/stakeholders in the use of methods and internationally accepted best practices.
• Contribute to the development of database management systems.
• Support statistical analyses including Monte Carlo simulations for uncertainty estimations.

POSITION QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Bachelor’s degree in international development or environment-related field required. Graduate level degree in environmental sciences, forestry, natural resource management, ecology, geography, or a related discipline is strongly preferred.

Experience and Position-Specific Skills:

• Minimum 3-4 years of relevant experience using GIS and remote sensing for GHG accounting and land use mapping required.
• Extensive knowledge and proficiency with GIS software (ArcGIS and QGIS).
• Experience with forest inventories, biomass data collection and field data collection.
• Experience with geostatistical and inferential statistical techniques in a natural resource management context. 
• Experience with Google Earth Engine (JavaScript and/or Python) is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated knowledge of statistics and modeling (including machine learning).
• Proficiency in R/Python for data management and analysis or other relevant platforms.
• Demonstrated experience supporting complex projects. Ability to contribute to project operations and workflow effectively and to track and meet deadlines for multiple tasks.

Must be authorized to work in the United States.

Winrock is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and value diversity and inclusiveness. Winrock recruits, employs, trains, promotes and compensates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law.

At Winrock we have a clear mission: Empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity and sustain natural resources through unwavering dedication to accountability, equity, innovation, integrity and transformation.

Winrock knows that its success comes from the hard work and steadfast dedication of its diverse workforce. Winrock remains committed to maintaining diversity, inclusion and equity across the entire organization