Economist/Biological Scientist/ Mathematical Statistician

This Economist/Biological Scientist/ Mathematical Statistician position is with Forest Service (Department of Agriculture) in Phoenix, AZ. This position serves as the National Program Leader for the Office of the Deputy Chief for Research and Development in the Forest Service's national headquarters. The incumbent is responsible for a broad range of leadership activities including forest inventory and monitoring research for statistically-based surveys including for the Forest Inventory and Analysis program. For additional information about the duties of this position, please contact Linda Heath at linda.heath@usda.gov. Key duties: • Exercises the full range of leadership responsibilities for the assigned program, which is national in scope and possesses considerable scientific or technical complexity. • Responsible for strategic national program development and planning for the assigned program. • Nationally recognized professional, scientific, or technical expert for the program, who brings exceptional creativity and ingenuity to the development of plans and proposals to address complex, emerging issues affecting the assigned program. • Gathers information on capital investments in facilities and technology needed to achieve program objectives and builds the budget requests and justifications needed to support the recommended investments. • Meets with clients of the program from inside and outside the agency to represent the program, mission area, and agency. • Performs supervisory responsibilities 20% or less of the time. Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Transcripts must be provided for qualifications based on education. Provide course descriptions as necessary. This is an interdisciplinary position and may be filled in any of the job series listed below. Basic Requirement: GS-0110 Series: Degree: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study in economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus. OR Combination of education and experience -- courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. Examples of qualifying experience include: individual economic research assignments requiring planning, information assembly, analysis and evaluation, conclusions and report preparation; supervisory or project coordination assignments involving a staff of professional economists, and requiring the evaluation and interpretation of economic information; or teaching assignments in a college or university that included both class instruction in economics subjects and one of the following (1) personal research that produced evidence of results, (2) direction of graduate theses in economics, or (3) service as a consultant or advisor on technical economics problems. GS-0401 Series: Degree: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position. OR A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in a major field of study that included 24 semester hours in course work in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position. Related course work generally refers to courses that may be accepted as part of the program major. OR A combination of education and experience that included 24 semester hours in course work in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry or related disciplines appropriate to the position, AND experience sufficient to demonstrate that I possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform work in the occupation that is comparable to that normally acquired through the successful completion of a full 4-year course of study with a major in the appropriate field needed to perform the work of the position. GS-1529 Series: Degree: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position. OR Combination of education and experience -- at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. Evaluation of Education: Courses acceptable toward meeting the mathematics course requirement of paragraphs A or B above must have included at least four of the following: differential calculus, integral calculus, advanced calculus, theory of equations, vector analysis, advanced algebra, linear algebra, mathematical logic, differential equations, or any other advanced course in mathematics for which one of these was a prerequisite. Courses in mathematical statistics or probability theory with a prerequisite of elementary calculus or more advanced courses will be accepted toward meeting the mathematics requirements, with the provision that the same course cannot be counted toward both the mathematics and the statistics requirement. Evaluation of Experience: The experience offered in combination with educational courses to meet the requirements in paragraph B above should include evidence of statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying known statistical techniques to data such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance. Without other indications of statistical experience, work required in the processing of numerical or quantified information by other than statistical methods is not considered appropriate qualifying experience. Examples of such nonqualifying work include statistical clerical work; statistical drafting; calculation of totals, averages, percentages, or other arithmetic summations; preparation of simple tables or charts; or verification of data by simple comparison or proofreading. In addition to meeting the basic requirement, you must also possess experience and/or directly related education in the amounts listed below. Specialized Experience Requirement: For the GS-15 level: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-14 grade level. Qualifying specialized experience is defined as all of the following: Developing and planning a strategic national program for natural resource inventory and analysis including assessing the adequacy of existing activities, identifying emerging issues and problems, and anticipating need for additional knowledge; Leading and creating partnerships for a natural resource inventory and analysis or management program with clients inside and outside of your organization; Formulating and justifying program budget requests for a multifaceted, national level resource inventory or management program, tracking and reporting program performance and accomplishments, and analyzing workforce capacity, organizational needs, and staffing trends for the program; and Writing clear, concise reports and persuasive briefing papers or synthesize results and ideas into policy documents for distribution to organizational leadership, scientific and technical experts, interested clients, and the public. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. TIME IN GRADE REQUIREMENT: If you are a current federal employee in the General Schedule (GS) pay plan and applying for a promotion opportunity, you must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirements of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. This requirement must be met by the closing date of this announcement. View the full announcement and apply on USAJOBS.gov.