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Senior Policy Associate

J-PAL North America Economics logo

J-PAL North America
Cambridge - United States
S: Based on experience

J-PAL North America, a research center within the Economics department at MIT, seeks a Senior Policy Associate to join its team and contribute to its mission to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. J-PAL North America conducts randomized evaluations, builds partnerships for evidence-informed policymaking, and helps partners scale up effective programs. As a regional office of the global Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, J-PAL North America leverages research by affiliated professors from universities across the world to generate and disseminate rigorous evidence about which anti-poverty social policies work and why.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to address the complex causes and consequences of poverty. To advance our mission, J-PAL North America must draw on diverse experiences from our staff and affiliated researchers in order to ask better questions and identify better solutions. We are working to increase the limited representation of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in the economics profession. Our organization is implementing strategies to attract, develop, and advance a diverse staff and building a pipeline to increase diversity among economic researchers. We are committed to engaging in self-reflection, learning, and dialogue to nurture understanding across differences. Together, we will build an equitable, inclusive culture where everyone is respected, empowered, and heard. To learn more about our work and team culture, see our Join Our Team brochure or visit www.povertyactionlab.org/na.

Opportunity Overview

As a member of the J-PAL North America team, you'll be part of a Nobel-prize winning scientific movement that can transform US policy making. Our Senior Policy Associates play an important part in this work by supporting J-PAL North America's ongoing partnerships with researchers, policymakers, implementing partners and philanthropic partners. As a Senior Policy Associate, your primary tasks will involve stakeholder engagement, evaluation support, project and process management, policy writing and outreach, and capacity building.

For our Senior Policy Associate position, we are looking for candidates with an understanding of impact evaluation, familiarity with economics and statistics, knowledge of social policy, public administration, and program implementation, excellent oral and written communication skills, attention to detail, strong project management skills, and who can take ownership of their work independently and collaborate effectively with other members of the team. We seek applicants from diverse backgrounds and especially encourage candidates with lived or direct experience with the social policy issues that J-PAL North America aims to address through its work.

Responsibilities

Stakeholder engagement: Support engagements with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working on randomized evaluations in North America. Build and maintain strong relationships with key partners in government, non-profits, foundations, and the private sector. Hold initial conversations with prospective partners to identify promising opportunities for randomized evaluations or evidence dissemination activities. Organize and attend convenings designed to bring policymakers, practitioners, and researchers together to spur new research collaborations or scale-up collaborations and share policy lessons from completed research. Draft reports to philanthropic funders and policymakers on the progress of evaluations and on lessons learned from program implementation. (25%)

Evaluation support: Manage processes related to collaborations with policymakers and practitioners to design randomized evaluations of innovative policies and programs. Explore policies and programs that might benefit from and be well-suited for rigorous evaluation. Share feasibility assessments and initial analyses with policymakers and researchers through in-person meetings, memos, and phone calls. Support partners in identifying their target population, defining eligibility criteria, refining their program's theory of change, and identifying constraints and potential threats to the integrity of the study. (25%)

Project and process management: Manage major projects and processes, including policy outreach webinars and events, stakeholder interviews, Request for Proposal processes, and research agenda development. Maintain funding initiative records and track compliance in Salesforce. (20%)

Policy writing and outreach: Draft publications and presentations that summarize and synthesize the policy implications of key research results. Support the policy group in identifying opportunities for informing policy development and strategically sharing evidence with policymakers, philanthropic partners, and other stakeholders. Provide guidance and assistance to practitioners working to scale up evidence-based programs. (20%)

Capacity Building: Create guides, documents, and presentations on research processes and methods that can serve as resources for policymakers and implementing partners who are beginning to work on randomized evaluations. (10%)

Compensation & Benefits

This full-time, exempt position is classified by MIT as a Technical Associate II position and currently offers a fixed market-based salary range that is based on experience.

J-PAL North America staff are MIT employees, which means they are eligible for a wide array of institutional benefits. Some of these MIT benefits include comprehensive health insurance, a 401(k) match up to 5% of salary plus a pension-based retirement plan, tuition assistance up to $5,250 per calendar year, commuter benefits, access to MyLifeServices, a generous vacation policy (3 weeks of paid vacation in your first year, and 4 weeks every year after that, plus an additional 12+ paid Institute-wide holidays per year), paid leave for sick time, maternity and parental leave, back-up child care benefits and much more.

Professional Development

J-PAL North America supports a culture of learning, with opportunities to attend weekly seminars, engage in small-group discussions with other J-PAL staff, participate in workshops, and take classes for credit at MIT or elsewhere with our generous tuition assistance program. Senior Policy Associates have the opportunity to work with J-PAL affiliates and directors, as well as interact with policymakers and practitioners.

Qualifications

Commitment to Mission & Values: Cares personally and deeply about policy that has the potential to reduce poverty and the rigorous research that informs it. Demonstrates interest in poverty alleviation in the North American (primarily the United States) context in particular. Demonstrates a commitment to J-PAL North America's values.

Education: A bachelor's degree in economics, public policy or administration, statistics, or a closely related field is required, as is training in statistics and quantitative methods and training in effective non-technical writing.

Experience: This is a junior-level position generally occupied by recent college or master program graduates, which requires demonstrating the equivalent of 2 years of relevant work experience, which can include experience gained through part-time work, college level coursework, related internships, volunteer experiences, research assistant or teaching assistant experience and/or policy work. Prior lived or direct experience working with communities of color and/or those experiencing poverty in North America is a plus.

Technical Skills: Demonstrates the ability to accurately
explain basic concepts related to randomized evaluation, other impact evaluation methodologies, and research generalizability with minimal support. Is able to understand and communicate details on research design, study implementation, results and their implications, and/or data systems on assigned projects.

Ownership of Work: Takes responsibility/is accountable for effectively completing assigned discrete tasks or projects with high attention to detail under direct supervision. Produces high quality work in the time expected; identifies and follows up with stakeholders as needed to ensure assignments are completed on time.

Written Communication: Accurately and succinctly communicates in writing with J-PAL staff and stakeholders on assigned projects with minimal supervision from senior-level staff. Clearly communicates technical information to non-technical audiences.

Oral Communication: Demonstrates strong active listening skills and accurately and succinctly communicates information orally to staff and external partners with minimal supervision from senior-level staff.

External Stakeholder Relations: Supports partnership development between researchers and potential implementing partners and/or maintains relationships with existing stakeholders under supervision from researchers or managers. Demonstrates experience exercising general stakeholder management skills in the context of policymaking or program implementation is a plus.

Task & Project Management: Takes on a process-oriented task, plans and organizes work, delegates appropriately, coordinates with others, establishes appropriate priorities and timelines, exercises follow through, and adds overall value to the process.

Problem Solving/Decision Making: Demonstrates adeptness at analyzing facts, judgment, and strong decision-making ability. Responds to problems, issues, and opportunities that are identified by supervisors. Collaborates to identify a solution or response.

Travel: Willingness and ability to travel as needed locally and in the US (usually minimal) to attend events or participate in meetings.

Job summary

Employer:

J-PAL North America

Location:

Cambridge, United States

Education:

Bachelor's Degree

Sector:

Academic

Salary:

Based on experience

Job Type:

Permanent

Hours:

Full-Time

Posted:

13th April 2021

Apply By:

29th April 2021

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