Eastern Washington Fish Science Manager

Description: As our Eastern Washington Fish Science Manager, you will provide strategic leadership for research, monitoring, and evaluation activities that inform critical conservation, management, and mitigation decisions in the Columbia and Snake River basins.  

You will ensure WDFW’s science is focused on key conservation, management, and mitigation needs, communicated in a transparent and accessible manner to decision-makers, and meets a high standard of scientific rigor.

This is an opportunity to serve as WDFW’s technical expert on salmon recovery, hydropower mitigation, and adaptive hatchery management in Eastern Washington. Working across disciplines and with policy staff, Tribes, agencies, and other partners, you will help shape science priorities and translate complex research into actionable information for fish management.

Through your leadership of the Hatchery-Wild Interactions and Salmon Recovery Science units, you will guide work that supports healthy and sustainable salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Columbia and Snake River basins.

Responsibilities: As our Eastern Washington Fish Science Manager, you will provide strategic direction for monitoring, research, and evaluation activities supporting salmon and steelhead management and recovery across Regions 1, 2, and 3.  Key responsibilities include:

Scientific Leadership:

• Provide leadership, vision, and direction for science activities in Eastern Washington, ensuring that science activities are focused on high-priority topics with strong management and policy implications. 
• Develop a forward-looking Eastern Washington science program encompassing an all-H (Habitat, Harvest, Hatcheries, Hydropower) management framework.

Science-Policy Interface:

• Serve as WDFW technical representative on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) related committees and workgroups designed to evaluate and adaptively manage the direct and indirect effects of hydropower development and operations on fish populations. 
• Serve as point person on the development and implementation of scientifically robust monitoring and evaluation programs and other science needs in Eastern Washington associated with implementation of WDFW Anadromous Salmon and Steelhead Hatchery Policy, Hatchery Management Plans, and Hatchery Genetic Management Plans.
• Provide a clear and defensible scientific foundation for FERC mitigation decisions, and summarize, interpret, and communicate science needed to meet FERC mitigation requirements.
• Summarize, interpret, and communicate science to be used in ongoing litigation over Endangered Species Act Biological Opinions for federal dams in the Columbia River.

Supervision:

• Supervise the Hatchery-Wild Interactions (HWI) Unit Leader and Salmon Recovery Science (SRS) Unit Leader and oversee approximately 90 staff within the Fish Science Division.
  • The HWI Unit consists of five (5) research teams in Eastern Washington with a primary responsibility for monitoring and evaluation of all WDFW salmon and steelhead hatchery programs in Eastern Washington.
  • The SRS Unit consists of two (2) research teams in Eastern Washington. The SRS Unit has primary responsibility for the foundational monitoring and evaluation of WDFW fisheries, population status and trends of salmon, steelhead, and bull trout in Eastern Washington.

Administration:

• Negotiate and secure contracts, agreements, and programmatic funding to support science needs for conservation, fisheries management, and recovery.

Qualifications: Closely related qualifying experience may be substituted for the required education on a year-by-year basis.  

Required Qualifications:

A Master’s degree in fisheries science, biology or zoology or a closely allied field. 

AND all of the following: 

• Eight (8) years of professional experience designing and conducting multidisciplinary fish-related research studies. 
• Demonstrated professional experience supervising, leading, and coaching employees, including performance management.
• Six (6) articles published in peer-reviewed literature, including:
  • Four (4) articles for which you are the senior author.
  • Two (2) additional articles for which you are the senior or secondary author.

Learn more about the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and apply here.