The Dept. of Geography at the University of Zurich, in Zurich, Switzerland serves as the host for the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS; http://www.geo.uzh.ch/wgms).

WGMS-tasked to manage, update, and disseminate global glacier fluctuations and inventories seeks a new Director to assume leadership responsibility for the overall scientific and strategic mission, productivity, and excellence of the service. The Director will be responsible for the management and administration of the service, cooperate with its data providers and coordinate data collection, and will foster interaction and collaboration with its sponsors and customers. These include policy oriented organizations, non-governmental organizations, programmes, and national agencies (UNEP, FAO, WMO, UNESCO, GCOS, GTOS, ICSU, IACS, GLIMS, NSIDC) on the one hand and scientific, institutional, commercial, public, and private users as well as the media on the other hand. The new Director will lead the development and implementation of the strategic plan as well as carrying the overall responsibility of the service' budget. The current service coordinates a total service and additional scientific efforts of approx. 4 scientists, partly being jointly supervised Ph.D.s and PostDocs with other entities of the Dept. of Geography. The Director will further foster the scientific research of the service that will serve the scientific community through the continuation and new development of services by making them available to various communities. This Director will report to various entities, namely national and international sponsoring agencies, the World Data System (WDS), the IACS office, as well as to the Directorate of the Dept. of Geography.

The position requires an individual with solid, in-depth experience in related research and with skills in leading an internationally oriented service. The position requires a Ph.D. in the cryospheric sciences or equivalent (Earth System Science, Geophysics, Geography, etc.) relevant to the WGMS and at least 4 years of post Ph.D. professional experience. A scientific publication record related to one of the topics of the WGMS must be demonstrated. The remuneration is according to the University of Zurich salary scales at the level of a research associate with special duties (scales 19 ES 3-8, depending on skills). The position will also require skills in promoting the science aspects of the WGMS and the acquisition of soft money complementing the scientific goals of the service. The working language is English. German, the general Department language and other language knowledge is an asset but not a requirement.

Application materials should include a letter of application, a detailed curriculum vitae, plus a statement of leadership experience and intent, and the name of three professional referees. Initial consideration will be given to applications received prior to January 29, 2010. Interested applicants are welcome to submit one PDF file to Ms. Sandra Altorfer (Sandra.Altorfer@geo.uzh.ch) with the subject line: WGMS Director.