Research Technician

The research technician will work directly with team leads, undergraduate students and/or recent graduates, and federal and state conservation partners in the southeastern region to review state and regional conservation planning documents and populate and deploy advanced data applications focused on prioritized species conservation and habitat recovery efforts.

Salary Grade
:11

Please see Staff Compensation Structure or Skilled Crafts and Service Maintenance Compensation Schedule for salary ranges. For salary grade UC, these positions are "Unclassified" and salary ranges are determined by the hiring department.

Mississippi State University is a top-ranked research institution, and the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture (WFA) has a strong applied focus in wildlife conservation and management. The 35-member faculty within the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture leads one of the most productive research programs in the Division of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University. The department is well-known for its highly collegial and interdisciplinary faculty, post-doctoral fellows, research and extension associates that help make the department one of the premier institutions for applied wildlife and fisheries science in the nation.

As one of the fastest growing undergraduate programs in the region, our 300 undergraduate students concentrate in wildlife agriculture science, human-wildlife interactions, conservation biology, wildlife veterinary medicine, conservation law enforcement, and wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture science. The department also houses 60 graduate students across a variety of programs. For additional information see
www.cfr.msstate.edu/wildlife

Data entry and database management

December 2026.

Essential job duties include, but are not limited to:

• Co-coordinating a team of undergraduate students and recent graduates on data entry, formatting, QA/QC, and database management and will serve as a primary point of contact with federal project officers.
• Assisting with data compilation and data management efforts that enhance existing federal and state conservation applications, including:
  • Support data entry/cross walking into the State Wildlife Action Plan and USFWS Birds of Conservation Concern dashboards and other planning and decision support mechanisms;
  • Support continued development of the USFWS Landscape Recovery Tool and training/engagement with other federal, state, and non-governmental partners for use in their conservation planning and delivery efforts;
  • Engage with the USFWS Southeast Region National Wildlife Refuge System planning efforts (including Comprehensive Conservation Plans and Landscape Conservation Designs) to utilize existing planning support tools;
• Enhancing understanding and facilitating communication of threats to priority species populations, actions that may enhance population sustainability, and development of robust population assessments;
• Ensuring federal data and metadata compliance in accordance with the project Data Management Plan, including communicating with federal data stewards, custodians, and records managers, compliance with federal requirements for data quality assurance and quality control, data storage and access, and appropriate tabular and spatial metadata standards.

High school diploma or GED and 4 years of relevant field/lab experience
-or
- Bachelor’s degree with major course work in a curriculum appropriate for the field of assignment
-or
- Two years of post-secondary training in a curriculum appropriate for the field of assignment and…