Population, Health & Wellbeing (PHeW)

Location:  Highfield Campus
Salary:   £25,217 to £30,046
Full Time Fixed Term (until 31/07/2022)
Closing Date:  Monday 02 August 2021
Interview Date:   To be confirmed
Reference:  1439921WR

The WorldPop Programme (www.worldpop.org), based at the University of Southampton, is seeking to recruit a technician to join the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Team and assist with spatial data assembly, processing, and analysis in order to provide support to a number of ongoing projects as well as to address ad-hoc requests from WorldPop stakeholders/costumers in a timely, accurate and professional manner. We require a technician with strong GIS conceptual knowledge, technical expertise, and spatial data analysis skills to work on (i) gathering and processing existing data on population distribution and mobility, including population characteristics, (ii) producing and harmonizing vector and raster datasets to support population distribution and mobility modeling, (iii) generating and documenting spatial analysis and modeling outputs, and (v) contributing to the dissemination of the latter. As well as joining the vibrant and well-connected wider WorldPop Team, the right candidate will have opportunities to contribute to high-impact publications. 

The work to be undertaken involves:

• Assembling, processing and harmonizing datasets on population distribution and human mobility.
• Assembling and processing a wide range of GIS vector and raster datasets to support modelling.
• Undertaking bespoke processing and GIS analyses in support of both WorldPop Researchers and stakeholders.
• Creating metadata, writing technical reports, and contributing to prepare scientific manuscripts (including figures).
• Contributing to disseminate WorldPop outputs using ArcGIS Online/Enterprise
• Carrying out administrative tasks associated with specific activities, such as performing risk assessment and organizing (project) meetings.  
• Interacting with WorldPop researchers/stakeholders/costumers and gathering their requirements.

It is desirable for you to have an undergraduate and postgraduate degree, or relevant industry experience, with a particular focus on GIS. Skill level equivalent to the achievement of HNC, A-Level, NVQ3 with proven GIS work/spatial analysis experience is required for the role. Most WorldPop projects are highly interdisciplinary and as such there is some flexibility to accommodate expertise from a range of cognate disciplinary backgrounds (e.g. geography, demography, statistics, computer science, ecology, epidemiology, etc). Experience of computer programming, statistical analysis, running GIS training, data visualization and database design would be advantageous.

The successful candidate will work under the supervision of the Head of the WorldPop SDI (University of Southampton, School of Geography and Environmental Science). The position is full time until 31 July 2022, with a likelihood of extension to this.

Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Maksym Bondarenko (M.Bondarenko@soton.ac.uk), Prof Andrew Tatem (A.J.Tatem@soton.ac.uk), or Dr Alessandro Sorichetta (A.Sorichetta@soton.ac.uk).

Application Procedure 

You should submit your completed online application form at https://jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Hannah Farrance (Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 2750 or email recruitment@soton.ac.uk  Please quote reference 1439921WR on all correspondence.