Apply as a Predoctoral Fellow in Development Economics

Application Deadline: September 2, 2024

Several faculty affiliated with Center for Effective Global Action is inviting applications for outstanding predoctoral fellows (Assistant Specialists) to support empirical analysis and administration for rigorous impact evaluations spanning diverse topics and geographies. Predocs work directly with one or more faculty on various studies, in support of a larger CEGA research agenda.

Roles/Responsibilities

Engage in data cleaning, data analysis and background research such as in depth literature reviews and evidence synthesis for technical and non-technical audiences
Predocs also support research partnership development by cultivating strong relationships with organizations providing research support and data collection services, and may have the opportunity to travel to field sites
Providing research assistance to research projects and papers using empirical approaches
Contributing to technical grant proposals
Progress reports for current funding sourcesand other administrative tasks related to the projects, CEGA, and the Principal Investigator(s) (PI)
Predocs may also support additional research and policy efforts relevant to the goals of the PIs and CEGA

Eligibility

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent international degree in Economics, Public Policy, Political Science, Business, or related discipline.
Strong interest in development economics, causal inference in applied microeconometrics, research design, program evaluation, and/or big data/remote sensing.
1-2 years experience conducting empirical research including contributing to data collection and cleaning activities.
1-2 years experience and competency with statistical software packages such as STATA, R, Python, Julia, and/or Matlab and ability to render accurate statistical analysis; as well as proficiency with LaTeX and Github.
Familiarity with standard social science data sources, internet tools, and HTML.

Requirements

Familiarity working with large-scale datasets, e.g., through cloud or cluster computing.
Ability to read and analyze published papers in economics, and accurately understand their main results.
Ability to independently investigate solutions to technical and administrative problems.
Outstanding written and oral communication skills, with the ability to translate complex scientific findings into accessible, non-technical language (via publications or professional presentations).
Experience living and/or working in LMICs.
Ability to work well with multi-national teams, and communicate effectively with colleagues and faculty.
Additional language besides English (in particular, French, Hindi, Portuguese or Spanish).