Research Specialist C

Job Description Summary

The Research Specialist will work within the Dairy Field Investigation Group, fulfilling requirements for NE-DBIC/USDA proposal, to develop next-generation dairy decision tool programs with on-farm mentorship. Primary function of the research specialist will be to: 1. Provide technical and research support to update UPENN ration balancing, including updating key prediction equations and re-programming the non-linear solver 2. Expand and update a dairy decision tool suite incorporating on-farm production data 3. Develop and launch a benchmarking tool for PA dairy farmers using on-farm data

The Research Specialist will interact with current PennVet dairy faculty, and emeritus faculty who have agreed to serve as mentors for this project. The Research Specialist will be expected to be well-versed in non-linear programming, mathematical modeling, and competent in all Microsoft platforms.

Job Description

This position is for a dairy data programmer research specialist to rebuild and expand upon our dairy decision-dashboard suite, update the UPENN Dairy Ration Analyzer optimization software by researching and modernizing key prediction equations, updating the non-linear optimization software package, and relaunching a benchmark tool with economic indices. Outcomes provided by the research specialist/data programmer will be applied on dairy farms and utilized by members of Penn Vet dairy field investigation.

Job Responsibilities

• Update of UPenn Dairy Ration Analyzer
• Investigate and apply new non-linear programming technique to existing tools
• Re-launch and modernize dairy decision dashboard program working with Dr. Dave Galligan
• Development of crop optimization tool
• Development of "economic opportunity" program for dairy farms
• Development of robotic feeding optimizer program
• Develop group optimizer program for feeding multiple groups on dairy farms
• Research and update as needed environmental prediction equations and inputs for crop, ration balancing, and nutrient prediction models
• Perform additional duties as assigned

This position is contingent upon grant funding.