Resilience Specialist

Tellus Civic Science Corporation (Tellus) provides world-class science, engineering, research, planning, and consulting solutions focused on resource conservation and restoration, carbon reduction, and sustainability to mitigate the impacts of climate change, strengthen community resilience, preserve our environment, and create a more equitable society for all. We are a team of environmental scientists, planners, engineers, policy experts, geospatial analysts, and data scientists with a passion to improve our local, national, and global environment. We seek highly motivated professionals to join our team who share this passion!

In July, 2024 NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) announced the award of 19 transformational Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (CRRC) projects to boost climate resilience in the United States and its territories. These projects received $575 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to be used to invest in collaborative, region-based approaches for climate resilience. Once implemented, these projects will increase resilience to extreme weather events, including hurricanes and storm surge, and address long-term, chronic climate hazards, such as sea level rise, erosion, and heat stress. Equity and inclusion, regional collaboration, and sustained capacity for reaching the national's coastal resilience goals represent important components of these efforts. The OCM has more information on the CRRC and the funded projects. https://coast.noaa.gov/funding/ira/resilience-challenge/

Given the complexity of addressing the impacts of extreme weather and climate change, NOAA recognizes that providing technical advice and assistance to grant recipients will be critical to the success of the program. Technical assistance is defined as targeted, customized support to help CRRC projects build their knowledge, ability, and capacity to achieve specific goals and outcomes. Technical advice and assistance offerings could include a range of services from identifying regional partners, advising on accessing and incorporating NOAA climate data and other tools, providing guidance on resilience planning and/or analytical tool use and/or development, and providing specific resilience subject-matter expertise to the funded CRRC projects. NOAA will provide the technical advice and assistance to the CRRC projects through one-on-one support via dedicated staff, as well as through national and regional offerings of trainings, meetings, and workshops. The technical advice and assistance will support communities on the ground and facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge transfer to extend benefits amongst and beyond the CRRC projects. The technical assistance will be provided by both contractor and Federal staff, often working together.

This Tellus position will be located in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia or within commuting distance to coastal Delaware, Maryland, Virginia region (fully remote) and will provide technical assistance to grant recipients located in the region. The ideal candidate will have an understanding of, and experience in, the local geography, culture, and coastal issues relevant to the region. Local, regional, and national travel will be required 25% of the time for this position.

Core responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Become familiar with community resilience efforts in the region
• Assist with assessing partners needs, including training, data, tools and technical expertise
• Engage regularly with Resilience Challenge partners and communities in the region, both in person and virtually
• Design and facilitate collaborative meetings for meaningful engagement and peer-to-peer sharing using co-development best practices
• Support and participate in national peer-to-peer sharing events for the Resilience Challenge
• Provide support to convene partners for planning, design, and implementation of resilience planning and adaptation efforts, and for sharing lessons learned
• Coordinate with OCM's regional staff and with a network of fellows to provide technical support to CRRC projects
• Develop outreach and educational materials around the CRRC projects' work to showcase success and amplify resilience stories
• Connect partners in the region to enhance the efforts of the collaborative
• Recommend appropriate NOAA resources, services, and expertise to partners
• Connect CRRC projects and assistance provided (e.g., resource development, relevant training, etc) to other resilience activities that OCM is involved in
• Assist with documenting and communicating Resilience Challenge accomplishments and performance measures
• Provide assistance in the management and administration of cooperative agreements and grants
• Provide expertise and training around risk communication activities

Qualifications Required:

• Masters and 2 years experience OR Bachelors and 6 years of related experience
• Experience facilitating groups and organizing events to ensure meaningful engagement with regional partners, including rural communities.
• Experience in resilience planning with rural or agricultural communities
• Knowledge of climate risk communication best practices
• Strong communication, organizational, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to problem-solve and manage conflict among diverse stakeholders
• Self-starter with ability to work in a small team environment or independently without direct day-to-day supervision
• Ability to follow standard operating procedures and guidance documentation
• Ability to pass a National Agency Check (NACI) and obtain NOAA CAC

Preferred:

• Subject-matter expertise in capacity building strategies for rural communities.
• Background in equitable climate adaptation or resilience planning
• Experience with Federal award management
• Experience working with regional collaboratives or communities of practice
• Experience applying social science methods to coastal management challenges
• Ability to process and synthesize climate data for agricultural applications
• Experience developing scientific communication materials for diverse audiences
• Experience facilitating strategic planning
• Experience working across sectors (multidisciplinary)
• Experience working in Delaware/Maryland/Virginia region
• Experience in training development and/or delivery