Industrial Hygienist, GS-0690
Definitions:
EXPERIENCE: One year of work experience is twelve months working full-time (at least 35-40 hours per week). Part-time experience can be pro-rated (i.e., a year at 20 hours per week is credited as 6 months of experience). If your position consisted of mixed duties, experience credit is given for the percentage of time that you spent on qualifying duties (i.e., if you held a position for 2 years, full-time, consisting of 25% personnel work and 75% budget work, and then applied for a budget position you could calculate your experience as follows: 2 yrs = 24 months. 24 months x 75% [percentage of time spent on budget duties] = 18 months of qualifying experience.)
UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION: A year of undergraduate education is 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours or the equivalent of college study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent was a prerequisite.
GRADUATE EDUCATION: In the absence of specific graduate program information, a year of graduate education is 18 semester hours or 27 quarter hours of graduate level college course work, or the number of credit hours the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university.
Basic Requirements:
Applicants must meet one of the following requirements:
A bachelor’s or graduate/higher level degree in industrial hygiene, occupational health sciences, occupational and environmental health, toxicology, safety sciences, or related science;
**OR A bachelor’s degree in a branch of engineering, physical science, or life science that included 12 semester hours in chemistry, including organic chemistry, and 18 additional semester hours of courses in any combination of chemistry, physics, engineering, health physics, environmental health, biostatistics, biology, physiology, toxicology, epidemiology, or industrial hygiene;
**OR Certification from the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (external link) (ABIH).
NOTE: Courses in the history or teaching of chemistry are not acceptable.
Evaluation of Education
All science or engineering courses offered in fulfillment of the above requirements must be acceptable for credit toward the completion of a standard 4-year professional curriculum leading to a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering at an accredited college or university. For engineering degrees to be acceptable, the curriculum must be in a school of engineering with at least one curriculum accredited by the ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) as a professional engineering curriculum.
Evaluation of Experience
Qualifying experience involves the recognition, evaluation, corrective actions, and elimination of environmental conditions in the workplace that causes sickness, impaired health, or illness. This experience must demonstrate a professional knowledge of the theory and application of the principles of industrial hygiene and closely related sciences such as physics and engineering controls.
Such work must have involved experience in all of the following areas: the acquisition of quantitative and qualitative data, and the measurement of exposures for a variety of chemical, physical, and biological stresses; the analysis of the data acquired and the prediction of probable effects of exposures on the health and well-being of workers; and the selection and recommendation of appropriate controls, including management, medical, engineering, education or training, and personal protective equipment.
For GS-12:
In addition to the basic requirements described above, applicants must have one year of appropriate professional experience in industrial hygiene that is equivalent to at least the GS-11 level in the Federal service.
Examples of such experience may include: planning and conducting walk-through surveys of industrial plants and government installations to appraise existing environmental hazards; making technical recommendations regarding unsafe practices, work environments, or procedures; inspecting facilities to comply with governing regulations, policies, or manuals; conducting short-term studies within an industry to identify potential occupational health hazards; reviewing standards and holding conferences to management of alleged violations and citations/penalties expected; recommending specific mitigation methods for an industrial hygiene/occupational health program.