Bird Island Science Manager

British Antarctic Survey (BAS) delivers and enables world-leading interdisciplinary research in the Polar Regions. Its skilled science and support staff based in Cambridge, Antarctica and the Arctic,work together to deliver research that uses the Polar Regions to advance our understanding of Earth as a sustainable planet. Through its extensive logistic capability and know-how BAS facilitates access for the British and international science community to the UK polar research operation. Numerous national and international collaborations, combined with an excellent infrastructure help sustain a world-leading position for the UK in Antarctic affairs.

British Antarctic Survey is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). NERC is part of UK Research and Innovation www.ukri.org We employ experts from many different professions to carry out our Science as well as to keep the lights on, feed the research and support teams, and keep everyone safe! If you are looking for an opportunity to work with amazing people in amazing places, then British Antarctic Survey could be for you. We aim to attract the best people for those jobs.

Purpose

To manage the long-term monitoring and targeted research projects on higher predators (seals, albatrosses, penguins and petrels) at Bird Island. This includes: management of Bird Island, including infrastructure, databases, purchasing, equipment, development of new technologies, public outreach, permits, risk assessment, liaison with Operations, Corporate Services, Science etc.; recruiting, directing and supporting the 6 zoological field assistants; managing the bird ringing and tracking programmes; managing and developing the long-term monitoring and demography databases; personal scientific research as lead and in support of other members of Ecosystems and external collaborators; applying for external grants as PI or Co-I; publishing papers as lead or co-author in peer-reviewed journals. The post holder may also be required to provide specialist support across the Ecosystems Team and other science teams in BAS.

Qualification

Good first degree or Masters in biological or environmental sciences. PhD in biology, ecology, marine science or related field.

Duties

Bird Island Science Management

• Manage the science infrastructure at Bird Island.
• Equipment purchases.
• BAS management committees and meetings relating to Bird Island
•  Permit applications and reports (South Georgia Govt., animal welfare)
• Risk assessments.
• Lead annual recruitment of new Bird Island Zoological Field Assistants.
•  Manage training of the Bird Island Zoological Field Assistants.
•  Manage the Bird Island Zoological Field Assistants in the field.
• Manage the bird ringing programmes.
•  Manage and develop the predator demography databases and data-entry systems.
• Ecosystems representative on NPRAM.
• Public outreach (including web pages) for the long-term predator monitoring programmes.

Scientific Research

• Lead targeted research projects generating primary science outputs in seabird and marine mammal research
• Deliver a key piece of software or key dataset, or publish on average at least one first-author paper per year in a high-quality journal.
•  Contribute on average to two or more papers as co-author per year
•  Develop grant applications (including NERC standard grants or equivalent as PI or Co-I) to undertake innovative predator research, with a strong focus on Bird Island.
•  Generate proposals for development of innovative technical systems and capital equipment bids for predator research.
•  Code bespoke extracts from the long-term demography and tracking databases for BAS and external collaborators.
•  Manage the Predators Argos tracking programs.
•  Provide specialist IT, data science, analysis and support to the Predators team, PhD students and Polar Data Centre.
•  Maintain/build web pages and associated data feeds for tracking studies.