Operations, Permits & Logistics Officer and a Senior Field Scientist

Climate Corridors is a US-based nonprofit working to build resilience for nature and people through connected landscapes.

Through our new Biota Species Discovery & Expeditions Program we will run rapid biological inventories and maintain deep, long-term sampling sites — generating the biodiversity baselines that conservation decisions rest on.

Specimens and tissue samples from our expeditions are processed by our genomics partner, which generates DNA barcodes and Barcode Index Numbers and builds reference species libraries published to the public Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). We are now growing — and looking beyond the Americas.

We are hiring two people to make that happen: a Senior Field Scientist and an Operations, Permits & Logistics Officer. Both report to the Director of Expeditions and Field Science. Both are full-time and remote, with international field travel (primarily for the Field Scientist role).

Operations, Permits & Logistics Officer

No permits, no expedition. This is the role that makes it all possible.

Every specimen we discover, every sample we barcode, every long-term site we keep running — none of it moves without permits, shipping, and airtight logistics. That is this job.

You will secure the permissions that make our expeditions legal, move people, equipment, and biological samples compliantly across borders, and keep our deep sampling sites active year after year. You will get our samples to Guelph for barcoding and see the results through to BOLD. When something is stuck in customs at midnight, you are the person who unsticks it.

It is a remote role with real ownership: you will run the operational and regulatory workstream end to end.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Unlock the field. Secure and track the permits that make expeditions legal — research and collecting permits, protected-area and territory access, CITES, Nagoya Protocol / ABS, Material Transfer Agreements — across the tropical Americas and, increasingly, worldwide.
• Move the science across borders. Ship specimens, samples, and equipment legally and on time: dangerous-goods documentation, cold-chain and cryogenic tissue shipments, customs clearance, biosecurity.
• Feed the barcoding pipeline. Get our samples to the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph with full chain of custody, and support the return of BINs and reference libraries to BOLD.
• Run the operation. Own expedition budgets, travel, insurance, medical and evacuation cover, communications, and provisioning — and be the calm operational point of contact while teams are in the field.
• Own health, safety, and evacuation. Arrange the insurance and emergency medical evacuation cover, write the emergency response and evac plans for every site — and then verify them: confirm the provider will actually reach that river, that the receiving hospital can handle what might happen, and that the response times are real. Hold the 24/7 emergency contact while teams are deployed.
• Contract the contributors. Handle contracting, procurement, and payment for the in-country scientists and taxonomists the program engages, making sure they are compliant and paid on time.
• Sustain the network. Keep our deep, long-term sampling sites permitted, agreed, and supplied — year after year.
• Keep it auditable. Maintain the permit register, records, and standard operating procedures that let us prove compliance to authorities and funders.

WHAT YOU BRING

• A track record in operations, logistics, permitting, or compliance — ideally in scientific, expedition, conservation, or international field-research settings.
• Working knowledge of international shipping and customs, including dangerous-goods and/or biological-sample movement (or a clear capacity to become certified quickly).
• Familiarity with the regulatory frameworks governing biological specimens — CITES and the Nagoya Protocol / Access and Benefit-Sharing — or the ability to learn them fast.
• Ferocious organization and attention to detail: many parallel deadlines, documents, and stakeholders, and nothing dropped.
• Strong budgeting and administrative skills, with sound judgment under time and field pressure.
• Confident cross-cultural communication with partners, agents, and government authorities.
• experience arranging insurance, emergency planning, or duty-of-care provision for remote or international operations — or the capability and seriousness to take it on — with the diligence to verify that arrangements hold up in practice.
• Able to work independently and remotely, owning a workstream without close supervision.
• Willingness and fitness to travel internationally where needed to meet field partners if necessary.

BONUS POINTS

• Spanish and/or Portuguese, or languages relevant to the Afro-Asian tropics as our footprint grows.
• Dangerous-goods (IATA/ADR) certification, or customs, freight-forwarding, or project-management credentials.
• Experience with medical evacuation providers, remote medical support services, or crisis-management protocols.
• Experience shipping genetic or tissue samples and working with DNA-barcoding laboratories or BOLD.
• Experience with ABS negotiations, MTAs, or protected-area and indigenous-territory access.
• Experience supporting long-term or multi-country field programs.

Senior Field Scientist

Lead in the field. Then make the science count.

This is a job for a field biologist who wants both halves of the work: the expedition itself, and the science that comes out of it.

You will be on our expeditions as a matter of course — co-leading alongside the Director of Expeditions and Field Science, and taking full command of expeditions and reconnaissance trips the Director cannot attend. Between deployments, you own the pipeline that turns field time into finished science: commissioning the taxonomists, driving the reports, running the analyses, and getting the papers out.

It is a role with real scope. You will build the specialist network the program depends on, and you will help take Climate Corridors into new parts of the tropics.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Lead in the field. Deploy on rapid biological inventories in remote tropical landscapes — co-leading with the Director, and taking full field command when the Director isn’t there. Team, safety, science, decisions on the ground.
• Deliver the science. Own the output pipeline: RAP inventory reports completed on time and to standard, datasets clean and archived, nothing left half-finished in a drawer.
• Build the specialist bench. Identify, contract, and manage the in-country scientists and taxonomists we depend on — scopes of work, deliverables, and the follow-through that gets identifications back on schedule.
• Analyse and publish. Take biodiversity data from raw field records through analysis to peer-reviewed publication, and help partners and local scientists publish alongside you.
• Run the barcode pipeline. Specify barcode-ready sampling, work with the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at Guelph, and see BINs and reference species libraries published to BOLD.
• Prepare the expeditions. Give our Operations, Permits & Logistics Officer the scientific detail that planning runs on — taxa, effort, equipment, preservation, permit scope.
• Keep people safe. Carry safety leadership in the field — site risk assessments, team briefings, drills at the start of every deployment, and incident command when you’re the one leading. We take this seriously and expect you to as well.
• Grow the next generation. Mentor and train local scientists, students, and field assistants. This is core to the mission, not an add-on.

WHAT YOU BRING

• An advanced degree in biology, ecology, or conservation science (or equivalent professional standing), with strong taxonomic or field-biology expertise.
• A track record of finishing things — completed reports, archived datasets, and peer-reviewed publications, not just time in the field.
• Substantial expedition or rapid-inventory experience in tropical or comparably demanding environments.
• Demonstrated capability to lead a remote expedition — team, safety, logistics under pressure, scientific delivery — and readiness to take that command when the Director is not present. This is an expected part of the role.
• Strong analytical skills: able to take biodiversity data from field records through to a publishable manuscript.
• Experience commissioning or managing contributing scientists, taxonomists, or consultants and holding them to deliverables.
• Highly organized and self-directed — able to run a complex delivery pipeline remotely and work within a scientific direction set by a senior lead.
• A current wilderness first-aid qualification (Wilderness First Responder or equivalent), or willingness to obtain one before your first deployment, and demonstrated safety leadership in remote settings.
• Physical fitness for extended deployments to remote tropical field sites, and a firm commitment to research ethics, benefit-sharing, and conservation.

COMPLEMENTARY GEOGRAPHIC REACH — STRONGLY DESIRABLE

Our current team’s depth is in the tropical Americas. We are therefore particularly keen to hear from candidates whose scientific experience and institutional networks lie in the Afro-Asian tropics — West, Central, or East Africa; Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands; South and Southeast Asia; or Melanesia and the tropical Pacific. Someone who can open doors and reach specialists in these regions would extend the program’s reach as it grows worldwide.

This is a complement we are actively seeking, not a barrier to entry. Outstanding candidates whose experience is centred on the tropical Americas remain very welcome and will be considered fully on their merits.

BONUS POINTS

• Spanish and/or Portuguese, and/or languages relevant to the Afro-Asian tropics (French, Bahasa Indonesia, Kiswahili, Malagasy, and others).
• Familiarity with DNA barcoding, BINs, and BOLD.
• An established network of taxonomic specialists across multiple groups.
• Experience setting up fieldwork in a country new to an organization — first-time permitting, first partnerships.
• Experience with research contracting or consultant agreements in an international setting.
• Familiarity with the permitting, CITES, and ABS context of international fieldwork.