Interdisciplinary (Transportation Research Analyst) Direct-Hire

This position is located in the Safety Research Division, Office of Research and Engineering, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The incumbent serves as an Interdisciplinary General Engineer / Data Scientist / Statistician who plans and conducts transportation safety studies and evaluations of the effectiveness of transportation safety programs and countermeasures.

As a Interdisciplinary (Transportation Research Analyst) Direct-Hire,GS-0801/1530/1560-11, you will perform the following major duties: Plans and conducts transportation safety studies, special studies, program evaluations, and analytical projects involving transportation safety programs, countermeasures, regulations, standards, policies, and technologies. Develops analytical products used by investigators and other agency staff to evaluate accident circumstances, contributing factors, safety issues, and emerging risks, using aggregate data and statistical analysis. Performs complex quantitative and qualitative analyses involving aggregate transportation safety data and research studies leveraging Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Prepares customized data and statistical analyses, and supporting documentation, for official agency responses, briefing materials, and analytical summaries of transportation safety data, Investigation data, and other technical information when requested by internal and external stakeholders. At the GS-12/13 grade levels, in addition to duties at the lower grade level, typical duties may include: Interprets study results, identifies safety risks and emerging issues within the assigned subject areas, and develops findings, conclusions, and supporting analyses that contribute to agency safety recommendations and transportation safety priorities such as improving accident prevention. Applies expert knowledge of specialized research designs and aggregate data analysis methods to support transportation accident investigations in three or more modes of transportation. Plans, conducts, and leads quantitative and qualitative analyses of aggregate data to identify safety risks and trends, evaluate safety interventions and countermeasures, and support the examination of systemic transportation safety issues. Provides expert advice and serves as a technical resource at the agency's public meetings, hearings, and forums. Represents the agency at transportation safety conferences, technical panels, working groups, task forces, and interagency discussions involving transportation safety data, statistical analysis, and research activities.

INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT GS-801 Job Series: A. 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree in professional engineering. To be acceptable, the curriculum must: (1) be in a school of engineering with at least one curriculum accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) as a professional engineering curriculum; or (2) include differential and integral calculus and courses (more advanced than first-year physics and chemistry) in five of the following seven areas of engineering science or physics: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength materials (stress-strain relationships);(c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science and physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics. OR B. Combination of education and experience -- college-level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the physical and mathematical sciences underlying engineering, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the engineering sciences and techniques and their applications to one of the branches of engineering. The adequacy of such background must be demonstrated by one of the following: 1. Professional registration or licensure -- Current registration as an Engineer Intern (EI), Engineer in Training (EIT)1, or licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE) by any State, the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Absent other means of qualifying under this standard, those applicants who achieved such registration by means other than written test (e.g., State grandfather or eminence provisions) are eligible only for positions that are within or closely related to the specialty field of their registration. For example, an applicant who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions. 2. Written Test -- Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE)2 examination or any other written test required for professional registration by an engineering licensure board in the various States, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. 3. Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements under paragraph A. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of an engineering program as described in paragraph A above. 4. Related curriculum -- Successful completion of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in an appropriate scientific field, e.g., engineering technology, physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology, may be accepted in lieu of a bachelor's degree in engineering, provided the applicant has had at least 1 year of professional engineering experience acquired under professional engineering supervision and guidance. Ordinarily there should be either an established plan of intensive training to develop professional engineering competence, or several years of prior professional engineering-type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions. (The above examples of related curricula are not all-inclusive.) For GS-1530 Series: A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing. OR B. Combination of education and experience -- courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance. For the GS-1560 Job Series: A. Degree: Mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science or field directly related to the position. The degree must be in a major field of study (at least at the baccalaureate level) that is appropriate for the position. OR B. Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major field of study (30 semester hours) as shown in paragraph A above, plus additional education or appropriate experience. For more information on Education, please refer to the Qualifications section of this announcement.