Research Data Scientist (Chicago)

Climate Impact Lab Research Position

This role participates in scientific research projects. Ensures compliance of research activities with institutional, state, and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives and mandates. Analyzes possible solutions using standard procedures. Writes articles, reports and manuscripts. Assists in drafting presentations on research findings. Successful candidates will work with the Climate Impact Lab, a unique collaboration of experts -economists, climate scientists, and computational scientists- working to build data-driven estimates of the local and global costs of climate change. Our research involves using econometric methods and globally comprehensive data to quantify the impacts of climate change sector-by-sector, community-by-community around the world. It will allow decision-makers in the public and private sectors to understand the risks climate change presents and mitigate those risks through smarter investments and public policy. The research has also been used to produce the world's first empirically-derived estimate of the social cost of carbon the cost to society from each ton of carbon dioxide emitted. This figure will be continuously updated as research progresses and can serve as the basis for energy and climate policies.

Responsibilities include :

• Develops and enhances climate and impact research tools.
• Manages and optimizes petabyte-scale data storage systems.
• Collaborates with researchers for new analyses with large datasets.
• Trains research assistants in tool usage and provides support.
• Oversees code management and organization within the lab.
• Ensures efficient data storage accessibility and integrity.
• Contributes insights to research and produces output for policymakers.
• Develops, maintains, and extends computational tools and data storage systems for climate and impact research.
• Supports researchers in conducting new analyses by working with petabyte-scale in multiple computing environments.
• Trains research assistants in the use of new and existing computational tools.
• Acts as a point of contact for code management and data storage at the Lab.
• Contributes to research on the impacts of climate change.
• Produces output for policymakers and publication in media outlets.
• Supports data collection and analytical needs of research projects. Conducts literature reviews and helps write reports and manuscripts. Ensures project compliance with different policies, procedures, directives, and mandates.
• Takes responsibility for the following non-laboratory duties : transcribing and coding data; developing data collection instruments; presenting research; and recruiting and scheduling research subjects. Acquires higher-level skills and knowledge in the process.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum qualifications include a college or university degree in a related field and 2-5 years of work experience in a related job discipline. Preferred qualifications include a bachelor's degree in a related field, background in research-related work in economics, climate science, data science, computer science, or a similar quantitative field, and technical skills in Python, data analysis tools, climate data storage formats, version control, and high-performance computing clusters.

Application documents required include a resume / CV and cover letter. These documents must be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.