GIS Lab Administrator – Costa Rica

Organization: Organization for Tropical Studies

Job Title: GIS Lab Administrator

Location: Costa Rica, ALL (La Selva Biological Station)

Hours and Compensation: Full time, Paid

Position Dates: Start ASAP

Application Deadline: July 15th, 2012

Posted On: July 9th, 2012

Organization Overview

The Organization for Tropical Studies, a non-profit international consortium of 64 universities and other scientific institutions from seven countries and four continents seeks a self-motivated outgoing person to manage the GIS Laboratory at the La Selva Biological Station, an internationally recognized center for tropical rainforest research and education located in Costa Rica. The GIS laboratory maintains Windows XP-based and Windows 7 work stations running ArcGIS, ArcView, ERDAS Imagine, and ENVI, as well as peripheral equipment including printers, plotter, and a GPS base station.

Description and Responsibilities

The GIS Laboratory Administrator is charged with actively promoting the use of GIS among the several hundred visiting scientists and 3,000 students and faculty who visit the station annually. The ability and desire to interact with a broad range of potential GIS Lab users, most of them untrained in GIS, is a basic requirement for this position. The GIS Laboratory Administrator is also responsible for continually upgrading and documenting spatial databases, as well as conducting day to day systems administration within the GIS Lab. The GIS Lab is actively engaged in using experimental and conventional remote sensing technology to generate new regional and local spatial data layers for the research community. The GIS Administrator’s duties are divided roughly equally among coverage maintenance, station user support, and system administration. The GIS Administrator serves as a mentor to selected undergraduate students from Costa Rican universities. The position is based in Costa Rica and supervised by the Director of the La Selva Biological Station.

Qualifications

MS or BS in Geography or field in Biological Sciences with emphasis in GIS/Remote Sensing, ideally in a natural resources context.Knowledge of ArcGIS Desktop, Workstation and ArcView.Previous experience in similar positions (GIS Lab Administrator)Experience with internet map server (ArcIMS) and/or ArcGis Server.Experience in mapping vegetation with common remote sensing techniques.Experience with ERDAS Imagine, ENVI or other remote sensing applications.Knowledge of metadata generation, database management, and general GIS systems management.Experience managing large databases and spatial libraries.Familiarity with Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems and capacity to perform some routine system administration and maintenance tasks.Experience with UNIX server operation and hardware maintenance desirableFamiliarity with GPS field measurements and post-processing differential corrections.Practical experience in cartography desirable.Willingness to conduct fieldwork in a rainforest environment or adjacent agricultural landscape.Strong writing skills.English-Spanish fluency mandatory (60-70% of daily business conducted in English). Fluency in Spanish highly desirable. Conversational Spanish or strong motivation to learn essential.Highly organized with ability to multi-task.Practical experience in cartography desirableIDL programming experience, AML, Visual Basic, or Python programming experience is desirable

How to Apply