Job applicants must be willing to spend time using 1-meter square drag cloths to drag for ticks in a variety of forest habitats and must have the stamina required to spend multiple hours walking in forest habitats each day, while stooping or kneeling to collect ticks from drag cloths. Applicants will need to be able to observe and collect the smallest tick stages from the drag cloths.

The TSC will provide training on tick surveillance techniques and tick identification to selected candidates who will need to be able to sort their collected ticks to species and life-stage level. Microscopes and tick identification keys will be made available in a room at the Richmond Health department. Days when weather conditions prevent field survey work will be used for sorting and pooling collected ticks.

Initially, a van driven by the TSC will be used to reach survey sites and VDH will cover time in transit from the VDH to and from selected survey sites. Candidates will also need to have personally owned vehicles (POVs) and may sometimes need to use their POVs to travel to survey sites within the survey region. Costs for work-related mileage in POVs, and for lodging during overnight travel, will also be covered by VDH.

Some prior training in entomology and/or other relevant fieldwork experience.

Experience working with dissecting microscopes, compound microscopes, and dichotomous keys.

Organization and communication skills.

Excellent data-management practices.

Ability to navigate by road maps, and to navigate while walking in unfamiliar forest terrain without a map.