Job no: 499451
Work type: Full-Time
Location: Center City – Philadelphia, PA
Categories: Academy of Natural Sciences
About the Academy
The Academy of Natural Sciences was founded in 1812 for “the encouragement and cultivation of the sciences”. Since then, it has sponsored global expeditions, conducted pioneering environmental and systematics research, and amassed remarkable collections containing more than 18 million specimens from around the world and a peerless library and archive. Since 2011 its academic enterprise has been further strengthened through its affiliation with nearby Drexel University – a leading private non-profit research institution that focusses on innovation and entrepreneurship and provides a unique cooperative education program for its undergraduate and graduate degree students.
Today the Academy is one of the most important natural science institutions in the world. However, the world is changing fast and the Academy – directed by its Strategic Plan 2019-24 – is changing with it. Over the next five years the Academy will become a “force for nature” and advance its mission: “to understand the natural world and inspire everyone to care for it”. In so doing the Academy will build on its fundamental belief that diversity and inclusion generates better ideas, inspires creativity, and is essential to building a positive workplace so that in time it can become an institution that is of, by and for all Philadelphians.
Job Summary
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia seeks a database programmer who can develop desktop and web-based solutions for managing specimen collections in the Center for Systematic Biology & Evolution. The collections contain 20 million species in areas spanning botany (plants and fungi), diatoms, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, malacology (mollusks), mammalogy, ornithology, paleontology. and general invertebrates. Current databases hold more than 1 million records in various platforms. More information about Academy collections may be found here, and information about research at the Academy can be found here.
The position reports to the Vice President, Collections & Research with a dotted line to the Senior Director, Technology and Infrastructure.
Essential Functions
Working as a database administrator, the database developer will share responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the databases and will work closely with curatorial and research staff to develop informatics tools for efficient data capture, quality control, visualization and analysis, and web-based data access. This is an ideal position for a programmer that is interested in both biodiversity research, full life-cycle development, and working closely with end users to develop creative database solutions.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or Equivalent in Computer Science or equivalent experience
- 2-3 years of experience with biodiversity databases
- Demonstrated experience with database programming using Filemaker, MS Access, and SQL required
- Demonstrated experience programming in a LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) required
- Experience with HTML/CSS and web design required
- Good communication skills and ability to work closely with end users
Preferred Qualifications
- Training and/or experience in zoology or botany
- Interest in biology and biodiversity
- Experience with some of the following: Linux/Unix system administration, qmail/ezmlm, ImageMagick, MapServer, DiGIR/TAPIR
- Demonstrated ability to assist with proposal development
For details and to apply https://careers.drexel.edu/en-us/job/499451/biodiversity-database-developerprogrammer