Senior Manager: Science (Based in Kimberley)

Requirements

• A PhD (or equivalent) in a relevant biological field is required.
• 5–7 years of experience in a relevant research or science-related environment following their doctorate.
• Ability to demonstrate a portfolio of peer-reviewed publications, written and verbal science communication.
• Sound knowledge of and background in ecosystem research, monitoring, and management, including in-depth knowledge of conservation practices and principles with an emphasis on adaptive management approaches.
• Strategic influence on policy and management decisions, and long-term impact across the organisation and broader conservation sector, with responsibilities aligned to expert-level knowledge, stakeholder engagement, and research integration at a high level.
• Good people management skills, an excellent networker and communicator.
• Ability and enthusiasm to travel extensively in the Arid Parks and across the SANParks estate, spending nights away from home and occasionally travel on weekends.
• A valid driver’s license.

Responsibilities

• Strategic planning, reporting and contribute to various assessment undertaken at parks to track and monitor progress – contribute to a variety of strategic planning and reporting initiatives, including park management plan reviews and revisions, annual implementation of the research strategy, regional and/or thematic research and planning mechanisms, etc.
• Provide leadership to a team of terrestrial scientists and provide mentoring to younger and/or less experienced scientists and biotechnicians.
• Knowledge generation, dissemination, and co-learning – conduct own independent research and communicate this (using academic and popular channels through both oral and written means).
• Knowledge translation, integration and harvesting – make sense of a diversity of monitoring and research findings for specific (national park and other) contexts and aid in articulating and highlighting its relevance to protected area management, practice and policy.
• Research impact and ability to facilitate, enable and/or solicit and support appropriate research – leverage external research capacity through established and new knowledge networks, in ways that are meaningful for SANParks.
• Coordinate and ensure implementation of the variety of ecological monitoring programmes such as vegetation monitoring, fire ecology, taxonomic classification.
• Sound basic administrative skills – work planning and scheduling, basic human resource matters, general and financial administration competence, etc.