Public Space Data Scientist (Location Flexible)

The Land and People Lab at Trust for Public Land (TPL) seeks a Public Space Data
Scientist to be a champion for data-driven decisions across the organization. TPL aims
to use rigorous methods to evaluate the extent to which our work delivers the outcomes
we most care about: health, equity, climate action, and community. Over our fifty-year
history, TPL has generated and collected a massive amount of data and there is
tremendous opportunity to uncover useful intelligence about how we might deliver
outcomes for people more effectively, through analyses, visualizations, and
communication of that data for a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

About the Organization

TPL creates parks and protects land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities
for generations to come. At TPL, we don't just save land—we create places to advance
health, equity, climate action, and community, from the scale of neighborhood
schoolyards to the scale of national parks. Every park, playground, trail, and public
space we create is an open invitation to explore, wonder, discover, and play. We're
proud to say that we've been connecting communities to the outdoors—and to each
other—since 1972. Today, millions of Americans live within a 10-minute walk of a park
or natural area we helped create, and countless more visit every year.

The newly formed Land and People Lab is an internal “think-and-do tank” that advances
TPL’s work through the power of evidence. The Lab generates and analyzes evidence
using a broad range of disciplines and tools—from geospatial science to ecology, from
economics to epidemiology, from urban planning to landscape architecture. The Lab is
also home to TPL’s content experts in climate action, health, and community strategies,
who help guide TPL’s strategic commitments to maximizing the multiple benefits of
equitable access to parks and open space. The Lab is the department within TPL
responsible for assembling evidence and pushing that evidence into practice and policy.

About the Role
This role will be serve as a lead data scientist for the Land & People Lab, splitting its
time between work supporting ParkScore & ParkServe (50%) and supporting other
client projects across the team (50%)
ParkScore & ParkServe (50%)
• Lead efforts to automate and improve efficiencies for data collection
• Lead efforts to automate the review and validation of collected data for both
surveys and GIS data
• Support efforts to improve methodologies
• Complete reconciliation of park inventories for each of the 100 largest cities,
supporting a transition to a new geospatial schema for park attributes to enable
advanced park quality and mobility analyses.
• Support efforts to make the data more ‘actionable’ through better
communications and tools, in collaboration with marketing & other colleagues
• Present findings at conferences & webinars
• Develop and maintain cooperative working relationships with colleagues,
municipalities, partner organizations and others.
• Support efforts to collect ongoing feedback from partner organizations and
implementation of feedback-based changes to the data collection process
Lead data scientist for evaluation, planning, research, and economic benefits projects
(50%)
• Develop, maintain, and improve R code for statistical analyses
• Coordinate between groups within the lab to establish standards and best
practices for data storage and management
• Collaborate with subject matter experts to develop new park performance metrics
and methodologies, such as using iTree to estimate climate benefits or using
survey data to calculate recreation and health benefits.
• Conduct park visitation and park condition analyses, including with an equity lens
• Support TPL tools like the Community Schoolyards tool to structure the data in a
way that enables evaluation of outcomes over time
• Present findings at conferences & webinars

Qualifications
• Passion for parks, people, and working together
• Positive attitude, with interest and ability to develop client and partner
relationships, being sensitive to balancing research aims with clients’ and
partners’ needs
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively on a geographically distributed
team and with staff in other departments
• Willingness to adapt and remain flexible as projects and priorities change
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Familiarity with key concepts related to key TPL commitment and park outcome
areas: health, equity, community, climate, economics
• Advanced problem-solving skills & attention to details
• Advanced ability to automate manual tasks via process or scripting
improvements, such as large data collection efforts
• Advanced data science skills, including proficiency with a scripting language (e.g.
python, R, SQL) and fluency in working with large datasets (e.g. beyond the
capacity of excel)
• Advanced experience working with local governments, in particular park and
recreation agencies and/or school districts
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn other analytical software as needed, such
as Esri (ArcPro), Tableau, SurveyMonkey, Salesforce
• Demonstrated ability to communicate research findings to specific audiences
• Demonstrated ability to perform background research, prepare narrative reports,
tables, charts, and presentation graphics
• 2+ years experience demonstrating ability as project manager or equivalent in
delivering high quality work products to clients in a fast-paced and self-directed
environment

Compensation
As a full-time, non-exempt employee, you will be eligible for TPL’s comprehensive
benefits program which includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, three weeks of
vacation annually plus holidays, end of year office closure and a 403(b) retirement plan, currently with a company match of up to 7%. Hiring range for this position is 75,000-85,000.


At the Lab, we all have a role to play. We believe in cultivating a culture of inclusion,
curiosity and connectedness. The collective sum of our individual differences, life
experiences, self-expression and innovation contributes to our achievements and how
we collaborate, share our perspectives, and encourage others to do the same. In turn,
our team culture inspires us to speak up and helps us stand out. In recruiting for our
team, we welcome the unique contributions that each person brings with them, including
perspectives informed by culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression,
religion, education, and beliefs. In pursuit of a diverse and inclusive workplace, TPL is an
equal opportunity employer.