USDA-ARS Software Engineering Fellowship for Exploring Content Ingest Automation in the NAL Library Service Platform
Application Deadline
8/14/2026 3:00:00 PM Eastern Time Zone
Description
*Applications are reviewed on a rolling-basis.
ARS Office/Lab and Location: A research opportunity is currently available with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS). The participant will be able to be onsite in Beltsville, Maryland or remotely.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific in-house research agency with a mission to find solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day from field to table. ARS will deliver cutting-edge, scientific tools and innovative solutions for American farmers, producers, industry, and communities to support the nourishment and well-being of all people; sustain our nation’s agroecosystems and natural resources; and ensure the economic competitiveness and excellence of our agriculture. The vision of the agency is to provide global leadership in agricultural discoveries through scientific excellence.
The National Agricultural Library (NAL), part of ARS, is one of four (5) national libraries with a Congressional mandate to serve the citizens of the United States. NAL also acts as the central research library for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The National Agricultural Library’s divisions provide web-based resources for public access to agricultural research and information and associated backend processes and workflows, as well as the Library’s catalog.
Research Project: The National Agricultural Library's (NAL) Library Services Platform comprises millions of agricultural records including scientific publications and other research data for internal record keeping and to make these records available to the public. This corpus of information is constantly growing and processed by the NAL Library Support System. While the preparation of ingest into the platform is completely automated, the final ingest has significant manual components. Under the guidance of a mentor, you will have the opportunity to explore different venues on how to automate this ingest, which also includes data harmonization.
Learning Objectives: Under the guidance of a mentor, you will collaborate with NAL library and IT staff, and will have the opportunity to learn about automated workflows, ETLs, metadata standards commonly used in libraries and in sciences, operating in an Azure cloud environment.
Mentor(s): The mentor for this opportunity is Ursula Pieper (ursula.pieper@usda.gov). If you have questions about the nature of the research, please contact the mentor(s).
Anticipated Appointment Start Date: 2026. Start date is flexible and will depend on a variety of factors.
Appointment Length: The appointment will initially be for one year, but may be renewed upon recommendation of ARS and is contingent on the availability of funds.
Level of Participation: The appointment is full time.
Participant Stipend: The participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience. The anticipated stipend range is $80,000 - $110,000 annually.
Citizenship Requirements: This opportunity is available to U.S. citizens only.
ORISE Information: This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and ARS. Participants do not become employees of USDA, ARS, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. Health insurance can be obtained through ORISE.
Questions: Please visit our Program Website. After reading, if you have additional questions about the application process, please email ORISE.ARS.Northeast@orau.org and include the reference code for this opportunity.
Qualifications
The qualified candidate should be currently pursuing or have received a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in the one of the relevant fields.
Preferred skills:
- Computational or computational science background (i.e., bioinformatics)
- Understanding of software development best practices and common programming languages like python
- Familiarity with tools like git/github, json, yaml, or similar, a good understanding of relational or no-sql databases and be comfortable being in a Linux command line environment.
- Experience with additional technologies that might be utilized include databricks.
Stipend
$80,000.00 – $110,000.00 Yearly
Point of Contact
Eligibility Requirements
- Citizenship: U.S. Citizen Only
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree, or Doctoral Degree.