Summary
The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. This position is located in the Office of Exhibits, National Museum of Natural History.
Duties
The Exhibits Specialist (Mount Maker) is responsible for designing, fabricating, installing, and maintaining custom mounts for artifacts and museum objects at the National Museum of Natural History, ensuring their safe display, handling, preservation, and exhibition In this position, you will Fabricate mounts/brackets for specified specimens and objects from approved drawings and/or verbal instruction from the designer, curator, and conservator. Design mounts and brackets for museum objects, producing technical drawings and diagrams for review and approval by exhibition, curatorial, photography, publication, and conservation staff. Coordinate with exhibition, conservation, and collection staff to ensure the safe handling, movement, installation, and deinstallation of museum objects. Produce accurate castings that may require paints or intrinsic colorants, determines the best model making techniques, the appropriate materials, the correct color and a wide variety of other materials to make molds, fabricate diorama elements, lifelike models, and natural scenes to fulfill the specifications set by the exhibit designer or curator in the available time frame. Repair and finish fragile museum exhibit components and reproduce original exhibit parts that have been broken or damaged. Repair and maintains current exhibits, including the reproduction of original exhibit components that have been damaged and the repair of chipped and/or broken pieces with plaster, wood, plastic or other materials.
Requirements
Conditions of Employment Qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement. For information on qualification requirements, see Qualification Standards Handbook for General Schedule Positions on OPM website.
Education
This position does have a positive education requirement.
How you will be evaluated
Applicants for this position may be evaluated in multiple stages. The first stage is an evaluation of your responses to the online multiple-choice questions that assess your experience, education, and/or training for the job-related competencies below: SELECTIVE FACTOR: Skill in performing conservation tasks, including evaluating and developing treatment plans, for a wide range of natural history collections, including paleontological specimens and sensitive anthropological objects. Knowledge of contemporary materials, methods and techniques of mount making as applied to museum processes such as object handling, collections management, research, exhibition, photography, and conservation. Knowledge of various methods, techniques, and materials used in the design and fabrication of museum mounts/brackets, including familiarity with contemporary conservation perspectives on material selection and an ability to balance design aesthetics with necessary mount function. Knowledge of contemporary, generally approved practices in object handling and care: including the use of conservation grade padding for temporary and permanent storage of objects, the use of industrial lifting and rigging equipment, and a facility with re-housing techniques appropriate for wet-mounted specimens. Knowledge of the range of model making procedures that rely on traditional casting and mold making techniques, the use of handheld 3D scanning equipment, the use of CAD software for interpretive sculpting, and industrial additive manufacturing equipment. Skill in working with a variety of art and construction media including plastics, epoxies, plaster, wood and metal, and the properties of a variety of adhesives, pigments, solvents, plastics, epoxies, rubbers, fiberglass, etc. Applicants who meet or exceed minimum qualifications will be assigned to one of three category groups based on job-related criteria: Best Category - Meets the minimum qualification requirements and excels in most of the job-related competencies above. Better Category - Meets the minimum qualification requirements and satisfies most of the job-related competencies above. Good Category - Meets the minimum qualification requirements but does not satisfy most of the job-related competencies above to a substantive degree. This category rating process does not add veterans' preference points or apply the "rule of three", but protects the rights of veterans by placing them ahead of non-preference eligibles within each category. A selecting official may make selections from the highest quality category (Best Category) provided no preference eligible in that category is passed over to select a non-preference eligible in that category unless the requirements of 5 U.S.C. 3317(b) or 3318(b) are satisfied. Preference eligibles who meet minimum qualification requirements and who have a compensable service-connected disability of at least 10 percent must be listed in the highest quality category, except when the position being filled is scientific or professional at the GS-9 grade level or higher. Applicants who have not submitted a resume in the USAjobs system and/or have not answered all of the vacancy questions will not be considered for this position. You may preview questions for this vacancy.