The Role

We are searching for a passionate data science Senior Research Associate, with experience in applied research on data science and experience or interest in the social sector, to provide technical and management support for the research agenda for the ISDM Centre of Data Science for Social Impact, a Centre of Excellence within ISDM.

Centres of Excellence:

They are independent units, carrying out research studies, engagement, and other activities in specific domains of development management.
Their aim is to impact the practice of development management in the Social Purpose ecosystem and significantly scale up the positive impact on the lives of people in sustained ways.
They will drive cutting edge thinking and become a global authority in that domain.

Centre of Data Sciences for Social Impact:

Aims to build stronger Social Purpose Organisations (SPOs) through better, more effective organisational decision making, by ensuring that the SPO ecosystem benefits from the data and knowledge it produces as well as open data that should be easily accessible, to create sustained impact at scale from the vast financial, social, and intellectual capital that is poured into it every year.
Over time, become a leading voice and a platform in the ecosystem for a rational, objective view on data sciences for social impact, connecting relevant stakeholders and driving the thinking on innovation and the future of these areas.
Create a shared vision, vocabulary, and metrics for data sciences for social impact and empower the SPO ecosystem with access to evidence-backed knowledge base and cutting-edge common access, open knowledge infrastructure.
Crucially, along with producing and disseminating knowledge, aim to create ready solutions for or consult with SPOs on their data and data sciences requirements.
If you unequivocally believe in the universal human values of justice, courage, compassion & equity, are passionate about doing your part to make the world a better place, excited about creating something new, and eager to be part of the journey of building a first-of-its-kind institution in the world, then ISDM is the place for you. In addition, you will experience working in a dynamic environment, with room for experimentation & high sense of ownership & accountability.

Key Responsibilities:

Provide technical and management support in application of data science to create social impact, through the use of big data and descriptive-predictive-prescriptive analytics (e.g. data mining, machine learning, predictive modelling), building dashboards and data storytelling.
Contribute to the development and testing of novel methods to improve the rigor and/or efficiency of the analysis.
Build relationships with SPOs, have empathy to understand their pains and needs and work with them to identify solutions through partnerships. Identify and connect with academia, corporate, volunteers who can contribute in solving problems. Bridge the demand of data and technology needs with supply of resources and ideas.
Lead & support the design, implementation, review, oversight and quality assurance of social sector data.
Applying data science methods to social sector data, including data wrangling, exploratory analysis of large-scale datasets, modelling, statistical analysis, advanced data visualization, predictive analytics and knowledge of social sector programming.
Develop and guide data strategies for particular sectors or a group of SPOs.
Evangelise Employing AI/ML and deep learning to create social impact.
Maintaining research transparency practices and work on open data.
Write Technical proposals across one or more development sectors.
Work with other Centres, teams and partners of ISDM for building synergies.

You must have:

Ability to simplify the research outcomes and explain data/findings through storytelling to serve a diverse set of audience.
Bachelors or Masters in Data Science, Statistics, economics, computer engineering or other relevant social science with a significant quantitative analysis component.
4-7 years of experience in applying data science methods in social sector.
Knowledge or experience in Natural Language Processing (NLP), image and video recognition or similar cutting-edge technologies.
Experience or good knowledge of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipeline for data.
Experience or good knowledge of developing Dashboards and plan & manage the entire data lifecycle.
Excellent written communication skills as well as presentation skills.
Ability to work with data teams, have critical and structured thinking.
Experience of working in complex projects involving multiple stakeholders, partners etc and navigate in ambiguous and uncertain environments.
Be passionate about the social sector with data driven approaches for strategy and operations.
Have some experience and knowledge in project management.
Knowledge of or experience working on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

ISDM is an equal opportunity organization with a particular emphasis on affirmative action. The culture of the organization is one of professionalism while also one that greatly values relationships.

To apply for this job please visit isdm.keka.com.