Job posting for Research Scientist position in Austin, TX

Hello Statalisters -

Our firm is hiring a researcher to help with our education research & evaluation practice here in Austin, Texas. Much of this person's time will involve coding for data management and statistical analysis (hopefully in Stata), so we are looking for someone with solid quantitative skills.

Included below is the job posting. Please send this to anyone you think might be interested and you can email (eric.a.booth@gmail.com) or message me with any questions.

Thanks!

Eric Booth



____________________________
Research Scientist

EMPLOYER PROFILE
Gibson Education Consulting and Research Group is looking for a Research Scientist to join the Research and Evaluation team. This employee will be responsible for educational research and evaluation of education programs for school districts, states, regional service centers, and other public and private organizations.
Gibson, a private corporation and nationally recognized firm based in Austin, specializes in the educational market. Having worked for over 250 educational organizations in 25 states over the past 22 years, Gibson works closely with educational organizations on the design, implementation, and execution of research and program evaluation projects that assess the effectiveness of educational initiatives and grant programs.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
Primary

• Designing evaluation frameworks—including rigorous methodological approaches—that measure the impact of educational programs on short-term and long-term outcomes.
• Assembling, managing, and cleaning large and small data files from a variety of sources, including state and district administrative databases, aggregated performance reports, and surveys.
• Applying appropriate statistical procedures for analyzing observational and experimental data.
• Communicating results of research and evaluation through presentations, reports, briefings, scorecards, and other products.
• Serving as primary contact point for client communication around research design or statistical expertise.

Secondary

• Developing evaluation proposals in response to competitive Request for Proposals issued by school districts, state education agencies, the federal government, and private foundations.
• Developing, and aligning, research instruments and protocols, including surveys, and interview and focus group guides.
• Conducting interviews, moderating focus groups, and conducting classroom observations.
• Analyzing focus group and interview data.
• Supporting the administration of large-scale district and/or state-wide survey projects.
• Acting as project manager for multiple ongoing projects, which includes, managing budgets, preparing and submitting status reports, conducting regular client meetings, and coordinating research activities.

QUALIFICATIONS
Competitive candidates will be proficient statistical programmers in Stata, R, or SAS (Stata or R are strongly preferred), and have recent experience with estimating multivariate models for limited and continuous dependent variables. The candidate must have extensive and demonstrated experience managing and cleaning large datasets. Skills, traits and abilities also include:

• Executing all data management and statistical analyses in an explicit and reproducible fashion, using annotated and documented scripts.
• Assembling panel data, and producing descriptive statistics and fitting the appropriate statistical models for these data.
• Translating complex statistical concepts and research findings into understandable results for school districts and state education agencies, as well as for practitioners in education.
• Excellent written and oral communication, interpersonal, organizational, analytic and problem-solving skills
• LaTeX experience is a plus.
• Experience with quasi-experimental methods for observational data is strongly preferred, including propensity score matching (PSM) or re-weighting, instrumental variables (IV) regression, or regression discontinuity designs (RDD).
• Experience working with education data strongly preferred.

EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
The ideal candidate will have a Ph.D. (or be ABD) in a social science field, such as psychology, political science, economics, educational psychology, sociology, human development, etc.
ABD candidates with a completed master’s degree will also be considered, however coursework must include substantial training in research methods, statistics or econometrics, or program evaluation.

EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS, EXPECTATIONS, AND ASSURANCES
This position will require 40 hours of work per week, usually Monday through Friday. The ability to travel 20%-30% of the time is required. This position requires that the incumbent sit for extended periods of time while working on a computer. The salary range for this position is $70,000 - $95,000 and will be commensurate with the candidate’s experience and expertise.

Gibson Consulting Group, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
To apply please send a cover letter and CV to: bfrank@gibsonconsult.com.