Operations Specialist

**Operations Specialist**:
The Global Water Futures Observatories (GWFO) is Canada’s premier national university-operated scientific freshwater observation network. It operates 64 instrumented basins, lakes, rivers, and wetlands, 15 deployable water measurement systems, and 18 state-of-the-art water laboratories that monitor Canada’s drainage basins and aquatic systems in unprecedented detail at a national scale, across seven provinces and territories, including the Great Lakes Basin and three other major river basins.

**Primary Purpose**: The primary purpose of this position is to guide and manage operational aspects of the GWFO facility including data collection and management, coordination of activities, tracking and reporting, and facilitating best practices.

**Nature of Work**: Reporting to the Director of Operations and Science, this position requires a thorough understanding of water observation networks and their operation and data management. Independent problem solving, sound judgment, discretionary decision-making, and excellent attention to detail is critical. The position involves interacting with GWFO employees and facility leads, university units, and external partners, and is required to develop positive relationships and maintain a high degree of professionalism. This position works closely with the GWFO Secretariat; effective professional relationships that support collaboration and problem solving are essential for success. Broad guidance from the Director of GWFO is provided to determine appropriate actions for more complex tasks and decisions.

**Typical Duties or Accountabilities**:Coordinate the Data Management Team, Technical Team and Secretariat to ensure that the operational teams are working effectively and achieving objectives across the program, to facilitate best practices and interoperability, and to ensure adherence to standards and protocols.
- This will involve regular liaison with these groups, involvement in meetings, site visits to labs and observations sites, and other interactions to review approaches and methods, and advise on and implement improved or more efficient or effective methods.
- Oversee and manage thematic groupings of observations that are apparent, such as hydrometeorology, lake ecosystems, flux towers, cryosphere, wetlands, forests, agriculture, urban areas, chemistry, and eDNA.
- Oversee and manage cross comparisons of specific measurement approaches within these groupings.
- Oversee and manage sub-groups of the technicians and site leads to examine issues of compatibility, optimal approaches, and interoperability amongst these.
- Oversee and manage sharing of experiences in innovation across the network, and lead technicians on visits to sites beyond those they normally work at.
- Coordinate tracking of all our quantitative and qualitative facility performance metrics and assist the Operations and Science Director in preparing reports on these for funding agencies, Strategic Management Committee and the Board of Directors.
- Develop efficient approaches and methods (forms, surveys, tabulation, etc.) for tracking and reporting performance metrics and program outcomes, gathering information on our data users, and tracking data downloads and usage.
- Implement these approaches in coordination with technical and data management teams, and data repositories.
- Work with technical and data teams to ensure short and long-term data preservation in reliable repositories.
- Develop and implement approaches and methods for standardizing the way in which data is cleaned and how instrumentation is cared for across basins and universities. This needs to be well-documented.
- Leading technical teams (i.e. hydrometeorological) to get together and review best practices, common problems, flagging data, etc.
- Develop and lead, or host, training courses on best practices for technical and DM teams.
- Lead technical, DM, and outreach and KM teams to work on an effective data strategy for managing real time and near-real time data, getting our data out to user groups in a timely and useful manner, and ensuring the long-term preservation of data.
- Lead technical teams to work together in thematic areas to improve standards and best practices, and to share experience and insights.
- Other duties as assigned.

**Education**: Completion of relevant post-secondary education or university degree is required.

**Experience**: Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience with a minimum of 3 year experience working in a research environment. Experience with hydrological observation infrastructure and networks, field methods in water monitoring and measurements, and data management.

**Skills**
- Demonstrated ability to work independently as well as in a team environment.
- Exercises sound judgment in decision-making and problem solving to ensure priorities and deadlines are met.
- Models a positive, productive, and collaborative work environment.
- Develops and maintains collabora