Acoustician Level 2 – Part Time - Cetacean Data Analysis & Processing Support

Overview

Lynker Corporation is seeking to hire one (1) part-time Acoustician Level 2 to support a contract with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). This is a year-round, part-time position anticipated at approximately 940 hrs per year that may be performed on-site or remotely, with anticipated travel in support of meetings, workshops, and field activities. The position is anticipated to begin on September 30, 2026.

Hiring for this position will be contingent on contract award.
* Lynker will be operating under its FLOAT joint venture, a NOAA Pro Tech Fisheries 2.0 prime contract holder.

NOAA NMFS uses passive acoustic monitoring data to support cetacean population assessments and analysis of ocean soundscapes across the Pacific Islands Region. The tasks for this position will support larger analysis efforts k will include analysis of datasets collected from stationary, drifting, moored, towed, and autonomous platforms to evaluate cetacean vocalizations, behavior, occurrence, and relationships to habitat and environmental conditions.

• Analyze passive acoustic monitoring datasets collected from stationary recorders, towed hydrophone arrays, drifting recorders, autonomous gliders, and other acoustic platforms.
• Develop, test, validate, and refine automated cetacean detection, classification, and localization approaches.
• Conduct quantitative analyses of cetacean occurrence, abundance, seasonality, habitat use, and acoustic behavior.
• Characterize cetacean call types and evaluate relationships between acoustic detections and environmental or anthropogenic factors.
• Perform statistical analyses supporting marine mammal stock assessments and ecological research.
• Analyze underwater soundscape datasets and compute ambient noise metrics across multiple temporal scales.
• Evaluate long-term acoustic trends and assess natural and anthropogenic sound sources within monitored ecosystems.
• Validate automated classifiers through manual review and annotation of acoustic datasets.
• Support acoustic analyses associated with autonomous Seaglider deployments and other emerging monitoring technologies.
• Contribute to acoustic propagation modeling and evaluation of species-specific detection performance.
• Maintain reproducible analytical workflows using MATLAB, Python, R, Git Hub, and NOAA Fisheries data management standards.
• Document analytical methods, maintain analysis logs, and support preparation of reports, manuscripts, conference presentations, and technical summaries.
• Collaborate with NOAA scientists, project partners, and working groups to advance passive acoustic monitoring methodologies and research objectives.

• Master’s degree in marine biology, oceanography, acoustics, fisheries science, statistics, computer science, or related field
• At least two (2) years of relevant experience
• Working knowledge of underwater acoustic theory and practice, including acoustic propagation, sound measurement, and standard signal processing techniques
• Experience developing, testing, and validating automated detectors and classifiers for passive acoustic datasets
• Experience processing acoustic data to extract soundscape and ambient noise measurements at hourly to yearly timescales
• Ability to design, execute, and interpret statistical analyses of animal abundance to evaluate patterns in occurrence or associations with habitat or fishery variables
• Prior experience drafting reports and presenting project results at scientific meetings
• Proficiency in MATLAB and R programming languages, including MATLAB-based acoustic analysis software Triton
• Current MS Office skills
• Proficiency with passive acoustic metadata databases such as TETHYS and Makara
• Proficiency in open science practices, including use of Git Hub or other resources for maintaining and archiving analysis code

• Experience with acoustic localization techniques, including evaluation of automated algorithms within PAMGUARD and development of novel processing and evaluation code