Lead Climate Scientist

This Opportunity

WSP is currently initiating a search for a Lead Climate Scientist to support our company’s growing Resilience Services Practice and our Climate, Resilience and Sustainability Team. This is a full-time position located in any of our 100+ offices in the United States with the possibility of remote work.

This new technical position is for a team member that will lead our analysis of climate and environmental data, lead research to support the determination of appropriate thresholds that define climate impacts on infrastructure and communities, and mentor staff. You will collaborate with other experts from our Resilience Services Practice, including other climate scientists, engineers, planners, economists, policy specialists, and risk modelers. Through this job posting, we are looking to expand our organization to meet our growing portfolio of clients, for whom we identify their risk to climate-related hazards (including socio-economic impacts), and develop resilience strategies and plans to reduce these risks.

Your Impact

• Lead the development and application of technical workflows for analyzing environmental data, including downscaled climate model output, to develop climate projections for several different weather phenomena (e.g., precipitation, temperature, snow, etc.) and to assess current and future exposures.
• Lead the research of appropriate climate stressor thresholds for climate impact assessments and examining environmental data for best-use purposes and appropriate applications.
• As needed, support the quantitative analysis of exposure, vulnerability, risks, and resilience associated with long-term climate change considerations for a range of clients such as municipalities and infrastructure agencies.
• Prepare documentation that succinctly summarizes methodologies and results for technical and lay audiences.
• Participate on multiple projects and lead selected technical project tasks, delivering on project commitments through effective coordination with internal colleagues, external resources and agencies, and consulting team partners.
• Contribute to a diverse team of experts working to advance the Resilience Services Practice through effective data-driven analysis and decision-making.
• Support clients and participate in client meetings to understand and meet requirements for projects.
• Represent WSP USA in the marketplace, contributing capabilities and experiences to other WSP offices.
• Exercise responsible and ethical decision-making regarding company funds, resources and conduct, and adhere to WSP’s Code of Conduct and related policies and procedures.
• Perform additional responsibilities as required by business needs.

Who You Are
Required Qualifications

• Undergraduate or graduate degree in meteorology, atmospheric science, climate science, or a related field.
• Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience, including the analysis of downscaled climate model output and other environmental data, and informing hazard and impact analyses through climate data (note: relevant research or academic experience may count towards meeting the number of years of experience). 
• Advanced understanding of:
  • The physical processes causing climate change;
  • The IPCC CMIP5/CMIP6, the global climate models included therein (including their strengths and weaknesses), and climate scenarios;
  • Different climate model downscaling methodologies and datasets, including their strengths and weaknesses, and the ability to select contextually appropriate climate data on a project basis;
  • The use of statistics and probability theory in the context of climatology;
  • The uncertainties associated with climate modeling and application of bias-correction/calibration in models;
  • The virtues of a scenario-based approach to decision-making and the role of climate models in decision-making;
  • The relationships between climate change and sea level rise and how sea level rise projections vary given different climate scenarios; and
  • The state of climate science research.
• Experience working with tools and/or coding scripts for effective data processing, analysis, and visualization.
• Experience routinely working on coding projects (e.g., Python) and adapting scripts, notebooks, and programs written by colleagues, enhanced by a strong aptitude in standard programming practices.
• Technical capabilities and leadership in project design and delivery.
• Experience communicating orally and in writing technical analysis and results to non-technical audiences using data visualization and maps.
• Attention to detail; commitment and skills to identify and detect errors; commitment to thorough quality reviews and checks; and commitment to accuracy, correctness, and excellence.
• Ability to innovate on challenging topics to produce client-tailored products.
• Experience working independently and on efforts requiring remote collaboration.
• Proven track record of upholding workplace safety and ability to abide by WSP’s health, safety, drug/alcohol, and harassment policies.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Further experience in climate science, such as:
  • Using baseline observation data of weather and climate to simulate future climate changes.
  • Developing probabilistic sub-24-hour precipitation projections (e.g., IDF curves).
  • Modeling urban heat island effects and projections of climate change influencing this phenomenon.
• Experience designing and delivering trainings and/or instruction on climate science and climate projection applications.
• Experience with high-performance computing (HPC) and parallel processing in cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
• Proficiency in version control systems (e.g., Git, GitHub) for managing code and collaborating on projects.
• Experience working with hazard modeling approaches that use climate data as inputs (e.g., hydrologic modeling, flood and storm surge modeling, wildfire modeling).
• Experience conducting climate-related vulnerability and risk assessments for different infrastructure sectors.
• Project management, business development and partnership building experience.

WSP Benefits:

WSP provides a comprehensive suite of benefits focused on a providing health and financial stability throughout the employee’s career. These benefits include coverage related to medical, dental, vision, disability, and life; retirement savings; paid sick leave; paid vacation (or other personal time); paid parental leave; and paid time off for purposes of bereavement, voting, and/or attendance at naturalization proceedings. 

Compensation:
Expected Salary (all locations): $107,000 - $169,290
WSP USA is providing the compensation range that the company in good faith believes it might pay and offer for this position, based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities in addition to internal equity and specific geographic location. WSP USA reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, and/or federal law.

Expected Salary (Colorado only): $107,000 - $141,130

WSP USA is providing the compensation range that the company in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position within the state of Colorado, based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities in addition to internal equity and specific geographic location. WSP USA reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, and/or federal law.

#LI-MC2

WSP USA is the U.S. operating company of WSP, one of the world's leading engineering and professional services firms. Dedicated to serving local communities, we are engineers, planners, technical experts, strategic advisors and construction management professionals. WSP USA designs lasting solutions in the buildings, transportation, energy, water and environment markets. With more than 15,000 employees in over 300 offices across the U.S., we partner with our clients to help communities prosper.

www.wsp.com

WSP provides a flexible and agile workplace model while meeting client needs. Employees are also afforded a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, disability, life, and retirement savings focused on providing health and financial stability throughout the employee’s career.

At WSP, we want to give our employees the challenges they seek to grow their careers and knowledge base. Your daily contributions to your team will be essential in meeting client objectives, goals and challenges. Are you ready to get started?

WSP USA (and all of its U.S. companies) is an Equal Opportunity Employer Race/Age/Color/Religion/Sex/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/National Origin/Disability or Protected Veteran Status.

The selected candidate must be authorized to work in the United States.

NOTICE TO THIRD PARTY AGENCIES:

WSP does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters, employment agencies, or other staffing services. Unsolicited resumes include any resume or hiring document sent to WSP in the absence of a signed Service Agreement where WSP has expressly requested recruitment/staffing services specific to the position at hand.  Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers or other business leaders, will become the property of WSP and WSP will have the right to hire that candidate without reservation – no fee or other compensation will be owed or paid to the recruiter, employment agency, or other staffing service.