E T Consultant- Geospatial Data Scientist

World Bank Group • Washington, DC

4d • Onsite

About The Position

The World Bank Group (WBG) Infrastructure Vertical provides public and private solutions to operational teams and clients across the WBG to produce scalable impact. Its mandate is to deliver knowledge for impact to support the WBG to achieve its goals in support of our mission and specifically: providing guidance on creating more and better jobs by: (i) supporting foundational infrastructure and human capital, (ii) policy environment, and (iii) enabling and mobilizing private sector capital. The Disaster Management, Solutions & Impact Unit (KIUSD) supports low and middle-income countries to understand, manage, and reduce their risks from natural hazards and climate change. Within KIUSD, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) umbrella trust fund is a global partnership that helps low- and middle-income countries better understand and reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change. GFDRR supports analytics and technical assistance to the most vulnerable countries and communities where it will have the greatest positive impact. The Global Program on Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Resilience aims to increase investment in Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for addressing climate resilience challenges across the World Bank portfolio through targeted knowledge, tools, and operational support. The Program helps identify, prepare, implement, and finance NBS for climate resilience purposes. The Program is structured along three pillars: Operations, Knowledge, and Partnerships.

Requirements

• A minimum of Master's degree and over 5 years’ experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience in a relevant field, such as: GIS-science; geo-IT; earth observation/remote sensing; quantitative/physical geography; applied spatial environmental science or ecology.
• A strong quantitative geospatial skillset with advanced EO/remote sensing, Geo-AI and geospatial modeling & data science experience.
• Demonstrated experience in writing and coordinating peer-reviewed publications in a field relevant to the assignment.
• Working knowledge of World Bank operations, especially resilience, disaster risk management, urban development, environment and climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.
• Transdisciplinary skills – proven ability to link technical and academic innovation in GIS and EO to practical applications and audiences outside technical experts and academia.
• Experience interfacing with and delivering high quality presentations and interactive workshops to government counterparts in developing countries and to donors.
• Proven capacity to multi-task, deliver results, and respond quickly and effectively to requests; ability to work under pressure.
• Strong oral, written, and visual presentation skills.
• Strong creativity and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English essential; knowledge in a second language is an advantage (French and Spanish preferred).
• Ability to deal sensitively in a multicultural environment and build effective work relations with clients and colleagues as part of strong interpersonal, organizational, and team management skills to achieve results.

Nice To Haves

• A PhD is preferred.
• Preferably this includes fluency in: Python geospatial packages (e.g., GDAL, Rasterio); cloud computing; Google Earth Engine; open-source GIS software (e.g. QGIS); processing and analyzing EO-data for applications in (landscape) ecology, environmental science, ecosystem services & nature-based solutions and/or natural hazard risk assessment; web-GIS development.
• Prior working experience in NBS within a World Bank project context is an advantage.
• French, Spanish

Responsibilities

• Take a leading role in the development and application of geospatial and other quantitative tools of GPNBS, including the NBSOS and BIOME.
• Supporting, curating, and developing EO-data applications for longer term monitoring of NBS investments, by monitoring ecological indicators and natural capital.
• Liaising with key partners inside and outside the World Bank that are managing/developing geospatial tools, EO-data, Geo-AI, VGI and other geographic information relevant to NBS, such as ESA, NASA, and many others.
• With the wider NBS team, take up the role as a technical advisor supporting World Bank Task Teams on how to make effective use of EO-data and geospatial analytics when preparing, designing and implementing NBS operations.
• Advance collaboration and integration of geospatial and quantitative analytics & tools on risk management and resilience in KIUSD and other teams in the global urban and disaster risk management department.
• Lead and/or contribute to knowledge products related to NBS analytics developed under the Knowledge pillar of the Program.
• Illustrate Program advancements and contributions in the form of blogs, peer-reviewed papers, conference contributions, etc.
• Contribute to programmatic outputs including results monitoring, reporting, budgeting, and branding
• Deliver presentations and workshops at a variety of settings, including with Task Teams, government counterparts and at internal and external events

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level