Director, Wildland Fire Environment Innovations Program – Part Time

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Arizona.

📋 Description

• Initiate, facilitate, and maintain strategic partnerships with external wildland fire agencies and federal sponsors, such as the U.S. Forest Service, state fire organizations, and regional management teams.

• Identify operational priorities and capability gaps in areas including fire weather, climate, fuels, and environmental information.

• Coordinate activities among multiple institutions and external partners.

• Establish long-term partnership objectives, strategic outreach initiatives, and collaborative frameworks with sponsor leadership.

• Translate operational fire management knowledge into interdisciplinary research inquiries.

• Lead and co-lead the development, testing, and refinement of decision-support tools, datasets, and environmental models for wildland fire managers.

• Contribute to peer-reviewed publications, technical reports, white papers, and deliverables for sponsors.

• Assess complex environmental challenges related to wildland fire management.

• Design, author, and present specialized training materials and instructional modules.

• Conduct technical workshops, technology transfer sessions, and offer consultation services.

• Gather and synthesize practitioner feedback to enhance tools and direct future research.

• Represent WFEIP and the University to federal decision-makers, agency leadership, fire managers, and interagency research committees.

• Act as an internal operational subject matter expert and liaison to faculty, research groups, and campus units.

• Enhance program visibility and research impact at conferences, sponsor reviews, and interagency briefings.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven expertise in applied meteorology and climatology, acknowledged as a regional or national subject matter expert (SME).

• Strong understanding of the inter-agency operational landscape of US wildland fire management, including the Incident Command System (ICS) and the National Coordination System (NCS).

• Significant experience in developing and delivering training materials for US wildland fire managers.

• NWCG 400-level (national) certification or higher, particularly in fire environment.

• Demonstrated ability to create, support, and adapt science-based tools for wildland fire management.

• Knowledge of the historical connections between interagency fire environment science, application development, related training and standards, and field practitioner use and experience.

• Proven skills in collaborative research.

🏝️ Benefits

• Part-time employment.

• Remote work arrangement.