Environmental Data Scientist

Description

The company is a global infrastructure consulting firm with more than 50,000 planners, engineers, scientists and other professionals, working in water, environment, energy, transportation and buildings.

This consulting role supports PFAS chemistry services and business development across the US West Region. Most of the work is on PFAS projects in the Environment business line, with exposure to projects in other subjects and business lines.

The role is expected to start in November 2026.

This is a hybrid, in-office job in Raleigh, NC. It does not involve routine lab analysis, but onsite field work and lab visits may come up.

You will support PFAS site investigation and remediation and help build the company's environmental AI and ML capabilities, including AI tools for environmental data analysis and curated data libraries used to train and deploy models.

You will have chances to work on many projects across business lines and regions while building your technical skills.

Responsibilities

• Give sound scientific advice on key project decisions, especially PFAS source identification and apportionment, conceptual site models, and multivariate data analysis.
• Design, build, validate and deploy machine learning, statistical and generative AI tools for environmental science and engineering.
• Create and maintain large curated libraries of analytical, geospatial, hydrogeologic and document data, with standard schemas, metadata, data lineage and QA/QC, for model training, validation and reuse.
• Build and run ETL pipelines and relational databases that keep environmental data accurate, consistent and traceable.
• Design and run statistical tests for anthropogenic background studies of PFAS and other constituents.
• Work with commercial laboratories and PFAS sensing innovators to shape and advance data applications.
• Keep up with industry and government practitioners on analytical methods and data interpretation.
• Evaluate data, including regulatory comparisons, and write up the results for field investigation and remediation reports.
• Help design experiments and evaluate data for forensic fingerprinting, remediation decisions, bench-scale studies, and fate and transport work.
• Set project data quality metrics and practices for work plans, sampling designs, SAPs and QAPPs.
• Procure analytical laboratory services and assess their electronic data deliverable capabilities for projects.
• Write technical memoranda and white papers for client deliverables.
• Collaborate across business lines and regions, and build relationships with academic and commercial laboratories worldwide.
• Support global PFAS practitioners and partners on research into fate, transport, treatment and risk.
• Identify, prototype and help scale AI and ML workflows with project teams.
• Automate reporting, data validation and data management using tools such as Python, SQL, Power BI and EQuIS.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in data science, statistics, computer science, environmental science or engineering, chemistry, geology or a related quantitative field, plus 4+ years of relevant experience in environmental data analysis, data management or environmental chemistry.
• Demonstrated equivalent experience and/or education can also meet this requirement.
• Preferred: experience applying multivariate statistics and/or machine learning to PFAS forensics and source apportionment.
• Preferred: working knowledge of PFAS chemistry, including sources and use history, nomenclature, analytical methods such as EPA Method 1633, EPA Method 537.1, TOP assay and non-targeted analysis, and fate, transport and precursor transformation.
• Preferred: demonstrated experience building, validating and documenting statistical or machine learning models on real scientific or environmental datasets.
• Preferred: proficiency in Python (pandas, scikit-learn) and SQL, including ETL pipelines and relational database management.
• Preferred: experience in an environmental analytical laboratory, such as EPA methods and QA/QC data review, and/or laboratory EDD development.
• Preferred: knowledge of environmental chemistry principles, such as fate and transport.
• Preferred: knowledge of analytical chemistry principles, such as quality assurance and quality control.
• Preferred: working knowledge of instruments for environmental analytes, such as GC/MS, ICP, GC-ECD and IC.
• Preferred: experience developing and implementing digital tools and data analytics services.
• Preferred: experience developing dashboards and data visualizations in Power BI or similar tools.
• Preferred: experience with statistical programming languages such as R or MATLAB.
• Preferred: demonstrated leadership capabilities.
• Preferred: master's degree in a quantitative, environmental or chemistry-related discipline.
• Preferred: experience with environmental data management systems such as EQuIS, and with analytical data validation or usability assessments.
• Preferred: experience with GIS and geospatial tools such as ArcGIS Pro and geopandas.
• Preferred: experience with cloud data platforms such as Azure, Databricks and Snowflake, plus Git version control and MLOps practices.
• Preferred: experience applying large language models and natural language processing, including document extraction and retrieval-augmented generation.
• Preferred: record of peer-reviewed publications or conference presentations.

Conditions

This is an in-office role in Raleigh, NC, with hybrid working.

The expected start date is November 2026.

Travel may be required based on client and project needs, at under 10% of the time.

Relocation is not available for this position.

Sponsorship is not available for this position.

All newly hired employees must attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at a company office as a condition of employment.

The company is an Equal Opportunity Employer and keeps applicant information confidential under EEO guidelines.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, life, AD&D and disability coverage.
• Paid time off, leaves of absence and service recognition awards.
• Retirement savings plan and employee stock purchase plan.
• Voluntary benefits, perks, flexible work options, well-being resources and an employee assistance program.
• Business travel insurance.
• Training and development programs to grow your technical and leadership skills.