Senior Geospatial Data Scientist, Remote & Impact-Driven

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 130,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) seeks a Senior Data Scientist to lead geospatial data science, remote sensing, and environmental modeling projects. You will design end-to-end workflows, mentor staff, and ensure rigorous validation and documentation across wetlands, water, and infrastructure applications.

Reporting to the Associate Director of Data Science, you will translate complex scientific questions into actionable plans, guide data choices, and

Responsibilities

• Lead collaboratively the design of end-to-end geospatial data science and remote sensing workflows, from problem definition and data acquisition through modeling, validation, interpretation, and delivery.
• Translate project goals and scientific questions into clear plans, technical requirements, milestones, and quality standards.
• Guide the selection and use of authoritative datasets, remote sensing products, geospatial methods, statistical approaches, and machine learning techniques.
• Anticipate risks, resolve complex technical issues, and make pragmatic discernments that balance scientific rigor, delivery needs, and available resources.
• Support technical members to refine common processes and establish repeatable methods across projects.
• Design or oversee accuracy assessments, validation strategies, sampling approaches, uncertainty analyses, and other quality-control methods.
• Ensure methodologies are reproducible, well documented, and appropriate for the intended use and context.
• Review code, models, data products, technical reports, and client deliverables for scientific and analytical quality.
• Clearly communicate methodological limitations, uncertainty, and appropriate interpretation of results to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Enable data scientists and other technical contributors to execute defined processes independently and consistently.
• Provide hands‑on troubleshooting, code review, technical guidance, and mentoring across multiple projects.
• Develop templates, reusable code, documentation, and training materials that strengthen team capability and reduce delivery risk.
• Work closely with project managers to estimate effort, plan technical work, manage dependencies, and keep delivery aligned with scope and schedule.
• Foster, or contribute to, research and development that improves CGS methods, model performance, processing efficiency, and data products.
• Evaluate emerging datasets, geospatial foundation models, cloud capabilities, and systematic methods for practical use at CGS.
• Contribute technical expertise to proposals, scopes of work, client presentations, publications, and strategic partnerships.
• Represent CGS in technical discussions with clients, partners, funders, government agencies, and the broader scientific community.

Job description

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) seeks a Senior Data Scientist to lead geospatial data science, remote sensing, and environmental modeling projects. You will design end-to-end workflows, mentor staff, and ensure rigorous validation and documentation across wetlands, water, and infrastructure applications.

Reporting to the Associate Director of Data Science, you will translate complex scientific questions into actionable plans, guide data choices, and