Senior Data and Wildfire Scientist
Description
Job Title: Senior Data and Wildfire Scientist
Location: Remote
Terms: Full Time 37.5 Hours Per Week
Reports to: Director of Climate Finance
About Us
The American Forest Foundation (AFF) unlocks the power of family forests as a climate solution while helping thousands of landowners care for their land and improve forest health. Through its Family Forest Carbon Program, AFF expands access to the voluntary carbon market for family forest owners from all walks of life while producing high quality forest carbon credits to help companies reach their net zero goals. The organization’s strategic direction seeks to enable family forests to capture and store one billion tonnes of carbon by 2050.
We do not do this alone. AFF works across a broad coalition of conservation partners, corporations, and policymakers to equip family forest owners with financial and technical support to implement sustainable forest management practices on their lands and activate their forests as a critical tool in the fight against climate change.
AFF is in a mode of complex problem solving and rapid iteration. All teams at AFF are working to discover solutions to the planet’s most pressing climate issues through developing and iterating viable and scalable models for impact. AFF is driven by values of our shared purpose, measurable and verifiable results, and learning for continuous improvement to tackle big conservation challenges.
About The Role
The Senior Data and Wildfire Scientist will play a central role in strengthening the scientific and methodological foundations of AFF’s programs, particularly the Fire Adapted Forests avoided emissions methodology and the Family Forest Carbon Program (FFCP). This position leverages expertise in data informatics, advanced statistical analysis, and remote sensing to build digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV) systems that ensure scientific credibility, market alignment, and scalability. The Senior Scientist’s will also support AFF’s work to better quantify ecosystem co-benefits — including biodiversity, water, and resilience outcomes — alongside carbon benefits, providing holistic and credible accounting of conservation impact. This role is within the Innovation Team of AFF and sits at the intersection of exploratory, data-driving approaches that help AFF achieve interdisciplinary science, methodology, and applied program delivery, helping to ensure AFF remains a leader in family forest climate solutions.
Requirements
Responsibilities:
We know there are great candidates who may not check all these boxes, and we also know you might bring important skills that we haven’t considered. If that applies to you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.
https://www.forestfoundation.org/who-we-are/careers/
We are committed to creating a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status or any other basis protected by law.
Job Title: Senior Data and Wildfire Scientist
Location: Remote
Terms: Full Time 37.5 Hours Per Week
Reports to: Director of Climate Finance
About Us
The American Forest Foundation (AFF) unlocks the power of family forests as a climate solution while helping thousands of landowners care for their land and improve forest health. Through its Family Forest Carbon Program, AFF expands access to the voluntary carbon market for family forest owners from all walks of life while producing high quality forest carbon credits to help companies reach their net zero goals. The organization’s strategic direction seeks to enable family forests to capture and store one billion tonnes of carbon by 2050.
We do not do this alone. AFF works across a broad coalition of conservation partners, corporations, and policymakers to equip family forest owners with financial and technical support to implement sustainable forest management practices on their lands and activate their forests as a critical tool in the fight against climate change.
AFF is in a mode of complex problem solving and rapid iteration. All teams at AFF are working to discover solutions to the planet’s most pressing climate issues through developing and iterating viable and scalable models for impact. AFF is driven by values of our shared purpose, measurable and verifiable results, and learning for continuous improvement to tackle big conservation challenges.
About The Role
The Senior Data and Wildfire Scientist will play a central role in strengthening the scientific and methodological foundations of AFF’s programs, particularly the Fire Adapted Forests avoided emissions methodology and the Family Forest Carbon Program (FFCP). This position leverages expertise in data informatics, advanced statistical analysis, and remote sensing to build digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV) systems that ensure scientific credibility, market alignment, and scalability. The Senior Scientist’s will also support AFF’s work to better quantify ecosystem co-benefits — including biodiversity, water, and resilience outcomes — alongside carbon benefits, providing holistic and credible accounting of conservation impact. This role is within the Innovation Team of AFF and sits at the intersection of exploratory, data-driving approaches that help AFF achieve interdisciplinary science, methodology, and applied program delivery, helping to ensure AFF remains a leader in family forest climate solutions.
Requirements
Responsibilities:
- Provide leadership for technical and science-based development of new carbon practices, project types, and quantification of co-benefits (including biodiversity, water, and community resilience) to expand AFF’s methodologies and program offerings.
- Lead the development and implementation of risk quantification and mitigation strategies aligned with AFF’s climate strategy, with a particular focus on market mechanisms to address wildfire risk and avoided emissions.
- Design and refine digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV) frameworks that integrate remote sensing, GIS, informatics, and field data across AFF’s practice areas.
- Analyze large datasets using advanced statistical and geospatial tools to monitor carbon stocks, wildfire emissions avoidance, and ecological change over time.
- Conduct high-level research on forest carbon dynamics, including sequestration, avoided emissions, and forest health, with direct application to FFCP methodologies.
- Collaborate with AFF’s wildfire, carbon, and science teams to ensure scientific rigor in methodological applications and monitoring frameworks.
- Support field teams in data collection protocols and provide QA/QC to ensure accuracy and consistency.
- Prepare grant proposals, scientific papers, reports, and technical documentation to support funding and share outcomes.
- Engage with external stakeholders — including researchers, standard-setting bodies, and market actors — to represent AFF and advance innovation in carbon accounting and dMRV.
- Ph.D. or equivalent experience in forest ecology, data science, remote sensing, or related field.
- Demonstrated expertise in:
- Remote sensing and GIS applications (satellite, aerial, LiDAR).
- Advanced statistical analysis, informatics, and/or machine learning.
- Forest carbon dynamics, wildfire risk modeling, and ecological monitoring.
- Proven track record in methodological development for carbon accounting or environmental monitoring.
- Familiarity with carbon markets, ecosystem monitoring, and MRV/dMRV systems.
- Strong record of scientific publication and ability to communicate results to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Ability to collaborate effectively across interdisciplinary teams and with external partners.
- Agility – Thriving in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments by anticipating and responding to changes with swift, focused and flexible actions.
- Collaborating with Others – Working together with others in a cooperative and supportive manner to achieve shared goals.
- Ensuring Accountability – Holding yourself and others to high standards of accountability, creating an infrastructure and transparent organization culture that supports and measures personal and organizational responsibility and accountability.
- Problem Solving – Identifying problems and the solutions to them. Your contributions and leadership will be appreciated. Our staff is passionate, dedicated and good at what they do, and will be deeply grateful for your efforts to create and preserve an environment that is both fun and fair.
- Scientific Rigor – Ability to design and implement methods that withstand peer and market scrutiny.
- Data-Driven Analysis – Skilled at managing large, complex datasets and generating actionable insights.
- Innovation – Applies creative approaches to methodological development and co-benefit quantification.
- Communication – Able to translate technical outputs into accessible insights for funders, landowners, and partners.
- You have the unique and exciting opportunity to work with amazing colleagues, partners and landowners to help connect forest landowners with technical and financial assistance to better steward their land and achieve vital landscape-scale conservation impacts.
- Your contributions and leadership will be appreciated. Our staff is passionate, dedicated and good at what they do, and will be deeply grateful for your efforts to create and preserve an environment that is both fun and fair.
- We offer a flexible work environment that respects your life outside of work.
- Salary is commensurate with experience.
- AFF offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package.
We know there are great candidates who may not check all these boxes, and we also know you might bring important skills that we haven’t considered. If that applies to you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.
https://www.forestfoundation.org/who-we-are/careers/
We are committed to creating a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status or any other basis protected by law.