Senior Climate Analytics Specialist

Role Description

ICF is seeking a Senior Climate Analytics Specialist with strong scientific programming and cloud-based, big data experience to support our broad portfolio of work on climate risk and resilience. Our projects span across commercial clients and all levels of government, enhancing the resilience of energy, transportation, and other critical infrastructure systems, and the vital societal and natural elements that make our communities whole. Our climate risk analytics leverage rigorous science, machine learning, distributed computing, and provide clear communication to enable proactive planning and implementation of resilience solutions.

The consultant chosen for this position will apply advanced analytics to the analysis and interpretation of weather and climate data, contribute to the development of climate risk tools and products, and support multi-disciplinary teams on multiple short- and long-term projects. This role is ideal for candidates interested in applying advanced analytics and machine learning to novel, high-impact problems where traditional modeling approaches are insufficient and new methods must be developed.

What you’ll be doing…

• Serve as a technical expert on multi-disciplinary teams focused on applied climate risk and resilience projects
• Use scientific programming, cloud-based distributed computing, and large-scale geospatial data processing to advance climate analytics and products
• Translate complex climate risk questions into tractable analytical and modeling frameworks, selecting appropriate statistical, machine learning, and physics-informed approaches
• Design, train, and rigorously validate machine learning and statistical models in data-limited and non-stationary climate contexts
• Interface with clients on climate risk and resilience topics, and prepare high-quality communication materials such as presentations and reports
• Complete tasks in fast-paced and self-motivated environment in a timely and efficient manner

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in climate science, atmospheric science, Earth science, data science, meteorology, or similar
• 5+ years of relevant experience applying advanced analytics to climate, geospatial, or environmental data
• 2+ years of experience with Python for processing and analyzing large, multidimensional datasets (e.g., NetCDF, Zarr), including use of Pangeo ecosystem tools such as Xarray and Dask
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing scalable, cloud-based workflows for large geospatial and climate datasets, including parallel processing, memory-aware computation, and reproducible pipelines (e.g., AWS, SageMaker)
• Demonstrated experience applying machine learning and statistical models to climate science, risk analysis, or related topics, using relevant Python packages (e.g., scikit-learn, PyTorch, etc.)

Requirements

• Advanced degree in climate science, atmospheric science, Earth science, data science, meteorology, or similar
• Ability to perform self-directed analytical work related to climate science topics and physical climate risk pertaining to energy systems, transportation networks, or other sectors
• Experience working with extreme events, tail risks, or rare-event modeling in environmental or geospatial contexts
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills; ability to communicate complex climate information to non-scientists to inform decision-making
• Experience working with and leading multi-disciplinary teams
• Organized, detail oriented, and the ability to prioritize and multi-task

Benefits

• Flexible workplace arrangements, work-life balance
• Donation matching, volunteer opportunities
• Tuition reimbursement, access to professional development resources, 401k matching, Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• And many, many more (Ask your recruiter for more details!)