Job Abstract

The Data Intensive Social Science Center (DISSC) at Yale provides Yale’s social scientists a world class, user-centered, support organization to ensure that Yale social science research remains at the frontiers of each social science discipline. The DISSC, working with its partners throughout the Yale community, supports the entire research lifecycle including the acquisition, secure storage and management, analysis, and dissemination of existing and novel data resources transforming social science research.

The Economic Growth Center (EGC) is Yale’s hub for research and teaching on international development and trade. It aims to leverage economics research and data-driven insights for equitable development. Founded in 1961 as the first research center in a major US university focused on the quantitative study of lower-income economies, EGC today has 38 faculty affiliates, primarily from the Economics department and School of Management, and houses a number of research programs and initiatives.

This is an incredible opportunity for an experienced data professional who is curious to learn and motivated by the opportunity to build and support these organizations. The research data support analyst will be part of an integrated team sharing expertise and learning from each other to support cutting-edge research. The ideal candidate is a knowledgeable data enthusiast interested in exploring new interdisciplinary data resources and working to learn and implement new data architectures and systems including cloud and high-performance computing environments. The ideal candidate also has experience developing or delivering research services in an academic setting, has an understanding of the social science research process, and has skills and experience in the use of various tools for information access, management, analysis, and presentation. They must enjoy working both independently, and cooperatively with others in the DISSC research support unit, on multiple projects involving varieties of data sources, customers, and analytical tools.

The current position will enhance the team with an international data specialist to serve as part of the research support unit, while specializing in supporting international research in the social sciences across disciplines and involving various methodologies. The current position with include a focus on supporting EGC’s Gender and Growth Gaps project, to support harmonizing, integrating, and maintaining international household and labor force survey datasets and visualizing data trends drawing on the harmonized data.

The Specialist will serve the data needs of faculty and other researchers, identifying and applying computational and statistical tools, and advising and training researchers in the use of these tools. Help identify and develop available international data sources and negotiate contracts. Work with researchers gathering primary data, primarily in international settings, to ensure secure storage and handling. Develop appropriate architecture of these data for efficient processing and analysis. Provide statistical support for descriptive and causal analyses. Support on secondary data acquisition, harmonization, analysis, and visualization, by building and maintaining large, harmonized, secondary data repositories for public use. Aid with data visualization papers/reports, websites, and presentations. Work with DISSC team members on developing data management and sharing processes for these types of data. Serve as EGC’s lead in developing and maintaining a data archive for affiliates’ datasets using Yale Dataverse and other platforms. Strong interpersonal skills, communication skills, and the ability to interact well with faculty, staff, and research partners internally and externally. 1. Consult to faculty and researchers regarding their projects and needs related to data infrastructure and data-related processes. Discuss suggested project designs solutions. 2. Work with procurement and legal teams to assist researchers to locate and acquire data resources. 3. Aid with maintenance and management of data through all phases of research lifecycle; review progress and assure accuracy and compliance of data being acquired and stored. 4. Provide technical support and computing assistance to faculty and researchers in the university’s social science departments and schools. 5. Implement statistical methods for descriptive and causal designs and learn new research methods as needed. 6. Develop archiving and dissemination solutions for research across disciplines. 7. May perform other duties as assigned. Bachelor's Degree in a related field and four years of related experience in academic or scientific research support or an equivalent combination of education and experience.