Education and Engagement Fellow

Rutgers University Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences

Education and Engagement Fellow

This position is part of the NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellowship Program, supporting the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (CRRC) projects. The fellow will support the project: Building a Climate Ready New Jersey.

Host Organization: Rutgers University, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences

Location of Position: Tuckerton, New Jersey

Duration of Position: Two years (June 2025-June 2027)

Annual Salary: $50,576

Benefits: Medical insurance, 11 paid federal holidays per year, 15 paid personal days per year, professional development training, travel funding, relocation allowance

Work Environment: The office is located at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS). The location is both stunning and remote! The commute to the office can be impacted by high tides. The work will be hybrid, consisting of three days/week in person and two days/week remote.

Fellowship Position Description:

The fellow will become an integrated part of the Education, Climate Awareness, Training, and Engagement (EduCATE) team. As part of this team, the fellow will work alongside their mentor, Lisa Auermuller, to ensure that multiple education, engagement, and training activities are planned and implemented in conjunction with the other core activities of the Ready NJ project. A brief description of each EduCATE initiative task is below.

This coordinated approach will include

• working with each of the EduCATE partners to learn about their initiatives and understand progress, implementation activities, and deliverables;
• familiarity with other parts of the Ready NJ program so that EduCATE initiatives can be interwoven;
• promoting the use of consistent methodologies, language, and branding;
• identifying synergies and efficiencies among EduCATE initiatives; and
• finding opportunities for transferability of EduCATE initiatives to other geographic locations within the Ready NJ project area and in other coastal areas outside of New Jersey.
  
  

The fellow will be expected to:

• Participate in all ongoing EduCATE initiative meetings (virtually and in person)
• Become familiar with New Jersey’s climate change–related decision support tools and applications including the Coastal Ecological Restoration and Adaptation Planning tool (CERAP), NJADAPT, MyCoast: New Jersey portal, and New Jersey’s K-12 climate change curriculum standards
• Identify and utilize best practices for community engagement throughout the EduCATE initiatives
  
  

Expected Deliverables:

• Using NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change, the fellow will work with each EduCATE partner to codevelop a Theory of Change (ToC) for the EduCATE Initiatives. This theory of change will be used to evaluate project progress, draft performance metrics, and help identify synergies among initiatives
• Timeline: Within the first six months of the fellowship
• Creation and ongoing iteration of a Ready NJ EduCATE Initiative “plan” which should be modeled after the NJ FRAMES Engagement Plan. This plan will serve as documentation of the initial engagement ideas for each project task but also as a living document over the course of project implementation
• Timeline: Ongoing throughout the fellowship with a final plan delivered by the end of the fellowship
  
  

EduCATE Tasks:

• Expand the use of MyCoast: New Jersey for community engagement and education. MyCoast: New Jersey provides a platform for communities to learn about climate-related flood risks and document coastal changes over time. MyCoast training will be delivered by the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve to the National Estuary Programs to demonstrate how to use all community science tools and how to work with them to create an outreach strategy and template materials to personalize messaging for audiences in the regions served.
• Innovative multimedia for resilience education. The Barnegat Bay Partnership and Novins Planetarium, both housed at Ocean County College, will develop, deliver, and disseminate full-dome planetarium and other guided educational programs on climate change and community resilience. The programming will focus on environmental topics (e.g., climate change, sea level rise, climate resilience) and will be correlated to New Jersey’s K-12 curriculum standards. Programming will also be delivered via a portable dome to reach a variety of audiences through community-based organizations (e.g., churches, social welfare organizations) and public libraries.
• Community support in the Delaware River/Bayshore region. The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary will build upon their successful U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Urban Waters initiative strategies to provide on-the-ground, community-level technical support and guidance to expand Urban Waters with resilience initiatives, build a peer network to share successes, discuss challenges and solutions, and augment an existing Camden City environmental program which brings local community leaders together. The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary will additionally expand these efforts to other overburdened communities surrounding Camden City (e.g., Pennsauken, Gloucester City) and the Delaware Bayshore Region (e.g., Port Norris, Bridgeton) to identify tools and programs to address their climate resilience challenges.
• Advancing Climate Data and Tools in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary. The New York–New Jersey Harbor and Estuary Program will develop and deliver high-quality materials and training for community members and municipalities. Training participants will gain technical skills in utilizing these tools for their local community outreach, focusing particularly on the estuary program’s existing partnerships and funded initiatives, to advance green infrastructure and climate resilience in the communities of Paterson, Newark, and Perth Amboy. In addition, the Harbor and Estuary Program will engage New Jersey’s informal environmental education community through their Hudson-Harbor Educators Work Group.
• K-12 Research Practice Partnership (RPP). In 2020, New Jersey became the first state to introduce K-12 standards addressing climate change. Implementation began in fall 2022. The Research Practice Partnership will implement an approach to support “green teams” of middle and high school students involved in promoting sustainability in their schools. These proven, effective K-12 interventions and actions will result in active learning and community engagement in civic processes, such as resilience planning and policy integration, increased social cohesion, empowered youth agents of change, and student-driven action projects that implement resilience measures. The regional collaborative will conduct a needs assessment across participating schools to codevelop and implement professional development events and host a Climate Change and Sustainability Summit for teens at Rutgers University.
  
  

Anticipated Travel:

Travel is expected to meet with and attend events of the various EduCATE partners. Travel includes various locations throughout coastal New Jersey. Opportunities for professional networking and professional development will also include travel. These opportunities could include New Jersey–based or national conferences and workshops. Relevant local conferences could include the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative conference or workshops hosted by the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center and the New Jersey Association of Floodplain Management. National conferences could include NOAA’s Social Coast Forum, The National Association for Floodplain Management conference, or NOAA’s Digital Coast conference. Additionally, the fellow is required to attend the peer- to-peer sharing event in2027.

Required Qualifications:

The fellow must have a bachelor’s degree in a natural science–related field or a policy-related program. Experience with science translation and education and outreach is required.

Desired Qualifications:

• Public speaking and clearly written communication
• Comfortable working in collaborative teams
• Graphic design and experience working with social media as a form of public outreach is a plus
• Experience or coursework related to coastal systems is a plus
  
  

Fellow Mentoring:

The fellow will be mentored by Lisa Auermuller at Rutgers University. Lisa is overseeing all EduCATE components of the Ready NJ project. At Rutgers, Lisa serves as the executive director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) whose mission is to support coastal decision-making and manage climate change–related risks through research focused on the intersection of natural and human systems. The Hub’s collaborations are rooted in core principles regarding community participation in and coproduction of climate solutions.

To apply, please upload the following materials in one PDF file:

• Resume (two-page limit)
• Statement of interest, where the candidate describes what they hope to gain from the fellowship experience and what they can contribute. Candidates should also highlight any connections to or special interests in the region, including Indigenous or local knowledge and relevant life experiences (500-word limit)
• Unofficial academic transcripts to show coursework (or joint services transcript for veterans)
• Two professional or academic references (names and contact information)
  
  

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