One Health Wastewater Monitoring Rural Program Coordinator

Position:                                         One Health Wastewater Monitoring Rural Program Coordinator
Reports to:                                     Regional One Health Scientist
Position Managed:                        None
Location:                                        Fairbanks, Alaska (in-person) with travel to remote Alaskan communities
Country Program/Sector:            Arctic Beringia
Scope:                                             Coordination with One Health team (to include US-based colleagues); primarily wastewater surveillance  in remote and rural Alaska
Position Type:                                 Full-Time (One Year contract)

Job Summary:
The Arctic Beringia Program has built a strong foundation of species, habitat, and issue-based projects across the three country components of our region – Canada, Russia, and the United States. Our work is closely tied with food security and food sovereignty needs, and often co-produced with Indigenous partners. Current focal areas include marine mammals and shipping, carnivore conservation, avian conservation, healthy coastal fisheries, wood bison reintroductions, habitat restoration, zoonoses spillover/spillback and One Health systems in rural Alaska communities.

To increase our impact, we seek an individual to coordinate an initiative to provide additional disease monitoring information through testing and analysis of wastewater in rural communities across Alaska. By providing early detection of public health threats such as infectious diseases and environmental hazards, we will take a proactive approach that allows for timely intervention and prevention measures, ensuring the health and safety of Alaska’s rural populations.

The ideal candidate will have experience in scientific equipment use, maintenance, user training, and/or experience interfacing with rural Alaskan communities. The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree in public health, environmental science, microbiology, or related field. This person will lead initiatives to identify candidate communities, assess community interest, capacity, and needs to implement wastewater monitoring devices in remote and rural Alaska communities with the guidance of the Regional One Health Scientist and Alaska Department of Health. The candidate will be responsible for meeting funder reporting requirements with the inclusion of communities’ feedback.

The rural coordinator will serve as a liaison to initiate conversations and lead engagement between rural communities, the WCS Arctic Beringia Regional One Health Scientist, and the Alaska Department of Health to implement Cephid GeneXpert PCR testing devices in partner communities to conduct real-time testing to enhance the responsiveness and efficiency of public health interventions and be available to assist in tech support, trouble shooting, and adjustments to program enrollment needs. This candidate will need to determine community preferences regarding data sharing with public health officials and general public.

The Rural Program Coordinator will play a pivotal role in enhancing the public health infrastructure of Alaska’s rural communities. By ensuring the effective monitoring of wastewater, this position will help in the early detection and prevention of health threats, ultimately contributing to healthier and safer communities.

Major Responsibilities:

• Engage Rural Communities: Lead in initiation of enrolment in the wastewater monitoring program including working with wastewater treatment plant operators, health authorities/entities, and other relevant partners to determine the feasibility of setting up a testing program.
• Coordinate Sample Collection: Organize and manage regular, consistent sample collection efforts from participating communities.
• Support Testing Facilities: Ensure the designated laboratory has the necessary staff and resources to perform consistent testing of the samples.
• Develop Communication Plans: Collaborate with partners and community health authorities to develop plans for the communication of wastewater monitoring data in accordance with community preferences, values, and ethics.
• Serve as Liaison: Lead engagement with participating communities to initiate enrolment in the Wastewater Monitoring Program with the guidance of the One Health Coordinator and State of Alaska Wastewater Monitoring program staff.
• Compliance and Reporting: Lead on the collection and reporting of performance measures, milestone reporting, contribute to online publications and writings, and any other mandatory grant reportables. This includes gathering and reporting community feedback to share with funders and Regional One Health Scientist. Ensure that all documentation and reporting meet funder requirements and deadlines.
• Site Visits/Relationship Building: Lead coordination, plan logistics, and conduct review of testing sites to initiate and maintain fostering of relationships with community partners, ensuring programmatic sustainability, growth, and longevity moving forward.