Project Officer Soil Condition and Function

**Acknowledgement of Country**:
CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation

**Child Safety**:
CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy.

**The Opportunity**:

- **Key projects support role in the Canberra-based Proximal Sensing Team**:

- **Make an impact in the future of sustainable agriculture**:

- **Great opportunity to join Australia’s national science and innovation agency**

The role of Research Projects staff in CSIRO is to collaborate in scientific and technological activities with other research staff usually by assisting with detailed planning, undertaking or assisting with experimental, observational or technology development work, and in carrying out the more practical aspects of the work.

The Research Project Officer Soil Condition and Function will directly support the development of new digital proximal soil sensing and soil analytical measurement approaches within the Proximal Sensing Team and wider Soil and Landscapes Group.

A fundamental role of this position will be to support the development of a capability to continuously capture CSIRO wide and national soil information, including soil spectra, analytes and associated metadata into the National Soil Archive and ANSIS. The role will also support several other nationally and internationally funded projects that are introducing rapid soil measurements including spectroscopic measurement techniques.

**Your duties will include**:

- Under general direction, contribute to research and/or technology through the development of original and adapted experimental methods, equipment or software.
- Under general direction, undertake international, national, regional and farm scale soil state and trend assessments for incorporation within natural capital accounting and other reporting frameworks as well as digital soil maps and land suitability assessments.
- Use rapid and cost-effective proximal sensing tools as well as soil analytical methods to support functional understanding of the agro-ecosystem.
- Show initiative to seek new approaches meeting experimental or technological needs when encountering new problems where methods are not defined.
- Participate in the identification and definition of research and/or technological problems with colleagues.
- Participate in planning projects and accept responsibility for scheduling and completion of major parts of the project, including evaluation of options, experimental design, data collection and analysis, user and customer research, user experience and/or software design, implementation and delivery.
- Work collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary, regionally dispersed research team to carry out tasks in support of CSIRO’s scientific objectives.
- Other duties as directed.

**Location**:Canberra (Black Mountain Site), ACT

**Salary**:AU$89,680 - AU$101,459 per annum (pro-rata for part-time) plus up to 15.4% superannuation

**Tenure**:Specified term of 4 years / Full-time

**Reference**:92659

**To be considered you will need**:
**Please address the Selection Criteria in writing and append to the end of your cover letter.**

**Essential**:

- Under CSIRO policy only those who meet all essential criteria can be appointed._
- Relevant bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of qualification and demonstrated relevant work experience in soil science, agricultural science, environmental science or similar fields of science.
- Demonstrated knowledge and skills in implementing field-based research aimed at e.g. quantifying the state and function of soils across spatially variable landscapes.
- Demonstrated hands-on experience in the measurement of soil analytical properties, including the use and maintenance of laboratory equipment.
- Demonstrated hands-on experience in measuring soil properties using proximal sensing tools such as infrared spectroscopy (e.g. FT-IR, Vis-NIR) in the field and laboratory setting, and knowledge of, or clear evidence in developing a skillset in the laboratory and data requirements for soil inference calibration and validation including the QA&QC of the collated datasets.
- Applied experience in soil data analysis, including a sound understanding of FAIR data principles, data management and version control, and statistics.
- A willingness to work on international projects that are introducing rapid soil measurements including spectroscopic measurement techniques.
- The ability to work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary or regionally dispersed research team, and the motivation and discipline to carry out autonomous work components.
- A current Australian driver’s licence.

**Desirable**
- Demonstrated practica