Senior Advisor Ecotoxicology

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We are the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Aotearoa New Zealand’s independent environmental regulator. Our role is important: to help protect our country’s unique way of life by looking out for the health of its environment, its economy, and its people.

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The purpose of the Hazardous Substances & New Organisms Group is to manage consent application and reassessment processes.

The purpose of our technical Senior Advisor positions is to provide objective specialist ecotoxicology expertise on and undertake the assessments and reassessments of Hazardous Substances for the EPA, as well as providing support and expertise across the wider team and the EPA in carrying out our statutory functions.

You will help us evaluate applications for the import, manufacture, and reassessment of chemicals into New Zealand, as well as providing support and expertise across the wider team and environmental regulatory system helping shape the future of New Zealand.

In this role, you will need to have a focus on time management, quality, and have an eye for detail as well as being able to support a positive, collaborative, and professional team culture.

This role is a hybrid position based in Wellington. While we’re happy to consider work‑from‑home arrangements, this role is not designed for permanent remote working.

Some of the accountabilities of this role include:

• Conduct comprehensive reviews of applications including assessment on the data quality, reliability, and interpretation of the ecotoxicological relevance of any of the observed changes
• Provide advice and recommendations following review and consideration of Ecotoxicology studies.
  Establishment of classifications and reference values according to the New Zealand application of the Global Harmonized System (GHS)
• Accountable for the review of exposure data to formulate risk assessments for various organism types and compartments as per EPA risk assessment methodology
• Support system development and maintenance
• Provide professional leadership and advice

We are looking for someone with a range of skills and experience – if you have some or all of the below, we would love to hear from you.

• Demonstrated ability to understand complicated scientific concepts, judge their validity, and provide advice on them
• Strong scientific background, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills coupled with application of scientific principles and exposure data/metrics for use in regulatory science and risk assessment
• Sound knowledge of chemical legislation (New Zealand and/or overseas) and its application
• Proven track record of at least 5 years of experience within a regulatory, industry, and/or consulting environment
• Demonstrated ability to collect evidence (data and information) from various sources, using relevant methodologies, understanding and interpreting reports in order to compile evidence
• Experience in determining GHS classification of chemicals and products for safety data sheets (SDS) and labelling
• Experience conducting risk assessment for chemicals in the specialist area (environmental‑fate and/or ecotoxicology)
• Master’s Degree or higher qualification in specialist area. Professional qualifications in the relevant specialist area are considered a plus
• Strong written and oral communication skills that allow dissemination of complex technical issues in a clear, concise manner to a variety of scientific and non‑scientific audiences
• Team player mentality with a pro‑active, result oriented, enthusiastic, and flexible attitude
• Ideally, you will have an expert knowledge of chemicals or agrichemical regulations

There are extra benefits to working at the EPA:

• flexible…