Data Scientist for Sustainable Finanance

The organization

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.
The Alliance focuses on the nexus of agriculture, environment, and nutrition. We work with local, national, and multinational partners across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and with the public and private sectors and civil society. With novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people in a climate crisis.
The Alliance is part of CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural research and innovation partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

About the position

The Alliance Climate Action team is looking for a motivated and high performing Data Scientist for Sustainable Finance to support the delivery of data science solutions for public investors. The incumbent will be able to develop innovative and high-quality analytical solutions to help understand climate impacts and adaptation options and inform investments in sustainable agriculture, land use, and food systems. We consider the Alliance and the CGIAR work on sustainable finance as strategic to contribute to reducing climate risk, reducing poverty, improving food and nutrition security, and scaling sustainable agriculture and land use.
As a result of the diverse nature of our work, this role will have the opportunity to work within a multicultural and multidisciplinary team, distributed across the world in many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
The Sustainable Finance and Data Science teams cover a wide range of topics including climate and crop modelling, geographic information science, social science, economics and finance, agronomy, environmental science amongst others. We work with a wide range of global, regional, national, and local partners to implement projects, design and deploy sustainable finance instruments, which ultimately build the capacities of financial actors, agribusinesses, and farmers to respond to climate variability and climate change, and scale sustainable agricultural practices and food system technologies.

Main responsibilities

• Implementation of project activities that use data science to support sustainable finance. These may include food system resilience, climate risk profiling and scoring, and climate impacts and adaptation assessments.
• Use analytical skills to lead and support the implementation of technical advisory for specific investments, risk analysis, and model-based climate impact and adaptation assessments in the areas (countries, regions) of interest to the Alliance and its partners. Automate analytical routines and contribute to capacity development of partners as needed.
• Lead and contribute to the writing of high-quality technical notes, project reports, and if of interest also peer-reviewed publications.
• Work closely with project partners and other teams in the Alliance to design and perform data analysis for climate risk assessment, food systems, climate smart agriculture, amongst others, through the operationalization of innovative methodologies that take consideration of partners’ and local stakeholder needs.
• Stay up to date with the most recent literature on climate impacts, adaptation, sustainable agriculture, food systems modeling, and climate risk assessment.
• Contribute to project proposal writing and bilateral fundraising
• Other tasks as assigned as relevant to expertise and ongoing or future projects.

Education and requirements

• PhD or MSc degree in agricultural science, data science, environmental science, geography, with an understanding of climate related risks, climate impacts, and adaptation in agriculture. Candidates with MSc degrees need to show a level of experience that demonstrates their suitability for the post.
• Experienced data scientist / modeler with a background in agricultural and/or environmental sciences.
• Extensive familiarity and experience working with climate model outputs (e.g., CMIP5/6), historical climate data (e.g., station data, CHIRPS), and related datasets such as crop yield data, soils data, etc.
• Experience in the implementation of project activities on agricultural climate risk assessment and profiling, food system resilience and sustainability, and climate impacts and adaptation.
• Substantial experience and demonstrated proficiency in climate data analysis and agricultural modelling using R and/or Python. Specific experience with machine learning, artificial intelligence, and crop modelling tools (e.g., process-based crop models) is a requirement, as is experience handling large databases for modelling and data analysis.
• Strong quantitative background.
• Excellent/proven English writing skills. Other languages (e.g., Spanish, French) would be a plus.
• Past experience in international agricultural research would be a plus.
• Experience working on collaborative projects as part of an international team.

Terms of employment

The position is regionally recruited and will be supervised by the global leaders Dr. Godefroy Grosjean (Global Leader Advisory Services, based in Rabat, Morocco) and Dr. Julian Ramirez-Villegas (Data Science for Climate Action, based in Rome). This role will be based at Montpellier, France. The initial contract will be for up to two (2) years, subject to a probation period of six (6) months, and is renewable depending on performance and availability of resources.

The Alliance Bioversity-CIAT offers a multicultural, collegial research environment with competitive salary and excellent benefits. We are an equal opportunity employer, and strive for gender, diversity and inclusion in our staff, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, marital status, or any other characteristic.

Applications

Applicants are invited to send a cover letter illustrating their suitability for the above position against the qualifications, competencies, skills together with a detailed curriculum vitae, including names and addresses of three referees knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience.

All correspondence should be addressed to Mr. Tomás Solís ([email protected]) with cc to Dr. Godefroy Grosjean ([email protected]) and Dr. Julian Ramirez-Villegas ([email protected]) with a subject: Application – Sustainable Finance Data Scientist.

The position is urgent and will be filled as soon as suitable candidate is identified. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview

Closing date for applications: April/20/2022.
We invite you to learn more about us at:
https://alliancebioversityciat.org/ ; https://alliancebioversityciat.org/2020-annual-report