Visitor Use Management Assistant AmeriCorps

POSITION DETAILS

Position (s): 4463
Position Title: Visitor Use Management Assistant - Ameri Corps
Conservation Legacy Program: Scientists in Parks, Stewards Individual Placements
Site

Location:

Alaska Region Office, Anchorage, Alaska
Number of positions available: 1

Duration: 52 Weeks (not flexible)
Flexible

Start Date:

Yes
Start Date: 5/4/2026
End Date: 5/3/2027
Ameri Corps Slot Classification: 1700 hours - this is the minimum number of hours the selected candidate must serve throughout the duration of their position.

• Segal Ameri Corps Education Award
  : $ 7,395.00 upon successful completion of position
• Weekly Living Allowance: $ 700.00 per week, fixed rate
• Relocation Allowance: $ 1,100.00 (distributed as a one-time lump sum with first paycheck)
• Student Loan Forbearance if applicable (administered by My Ameri Corps , directly)
• Student Loan Interest Payments if applicable (administered through My Ameri Corps , directly)
• For 52-week positions only:
  • Free Healthcare Coverage (opt in)
  • Childcare Coverage (opt in)

APPLICATION TIMELINE

Preference given to applicants who submit applications before Sunday, February 15, 2026. Applications will be reviewed after the Final date to receive applications passes. Positions will close after receiving 60 complete applications, or at 11:59 p.m. EST on February 15, 2026, whichever occurs first.

KEYWORDS: GIS data analysis, Python code, R code, Visitor use services, Alaska region-wide

This Visitor Use Management Assistant is an Ameri Corps position. Many National Parks in Alaska were founded, in part, to protect and maintain coastal habitat, as stated in enabling legislation (ANILCA 1980). The meeting of marine state waters and NPS coastline makes the management and information sharing a critical partnership. The SIP participant will play a critical role in establishing data management and analysis of vessel traffic metrics from AIS systems across Alaska’s state waters near and adjacent to park coastlines.

This kind of project directly supports oil spill preparedness and visitor safety and experience.

Enhancing Oil Spill Preparedness for Alaska National Parks. Alaska’s national parks includes 10 coastal parks with over 3600 miles of coast and tens of thousands of sq miles of marine habitats. Visitors often access these parks via vessels. Commercial shipping also transits adjacent to all coastal parks across the state. The volume of vessel traffic in these parks has increased dramatically over the past several decades.

For example, passenger numbers of cruise ships coming to Alaska is expected to exceed 1.8 million in 2026 up from 700,000 just over a decade ago. In addition to increased volume, ships are also larger and carry more fuel. In the early-2000s vessels carried around 2,000 passengers and weighed about 75,000 gross tons. By 2026, many ships coming to Alaska will carry more than 5,000 passengers, with some exceeding 200,000 gross tons.

To meet the energy demands, ships bunker (carry) large quantities of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and Marine Gas Oil (MGO). In 2022, vessels entering Glacier Bay carried an average of 875 tonnes of HFO and 670 tonnes of MGO—over 420,000 gallons of fuel. Increased vessel traffic is not limited to the southeast Alaska parks (Glacier Bay, Wrangell St. Klondike Goldrush, Sitka NHP).

Western Arctic parks are increasingly at risk of a catastrophic oil spill owing to the large increase of vessel traffic in and near the Bering Strait. Yet the NPS has no regional oil spill coordinator and parks have no coordinated, standardized communications plan in the event of a spill. A fundamental first step in preparedness is understanding levels of risk as it provides insight into where to invest time and resources.

In support of this important effort, the National Park Service seeks vessel traffic data analysis in support of visitor safety and agency management decision-making support. The participant will:

• Use AIS vessel traffic data to analyze and summarize cruise ship movement and activity.
• Review and synthesize cruise ship technical reports within NPS for Southeast Alaska parks.
• Work with supervisors to develop…