Research Analyst - Evidence Aggregation and Data Science

The Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University is a research center focused on generating and synthesizing evidence to support poverty reduction. The Research Analyst will support an AI-assisted evidence aggregation initiative by managing data extraction and harmonization pipelines, conducting quantitative analyses and literature reviews, supervising validators and undergraduate research assistants, and contributing to project management and dissemination.

What you'll do:

• Supporting the operation and iterative improvement of the AI-assisted data extraction pipeline, including monitoring extraction accuracy, identifying fields where AI performance requires refinement, and contributing to validation workflows
• Cleaning, organizing, and quality-checking data extracted from several published RCT papers into DEVIDENCE, GPRL’s relational database of study-level metadata and treatment effects, and preparing it for use in cross-study analyses
• Cleaning and organizing study microdata from published RCTs and validating their replication packages to prepare them for harmonization and cross-study analyses
• Supporting the crowdsourcing platform through which a distributed network of external validators review and adjudicate AI-extracted data, including helping to onboard new cohorts of validators, tracking coder performance, and identifying and resolving data quality issues
• Conducting quantitative analysis using the harmonized data, including contributing to meta-analyses and evidence reviews, preparing tables and figures, and assisting with revisions to working papers and publications
• Supervising undergraduate RAs engaged in data extraction and validation tasks, including providing training, reviewing work, and maintaining coding documentation
• Contributing to the development and refinement of training materials, coding guides, and documentation that support both internal staff and the external validator community
• Assisting with the design and implementation of data harmonization protocols for select outcome variables across studies, including writing and reviewing code that standardizes variables for cross-study comparability
• Supporting project management and dissemination tasks, including tracking project milestones, preparing materials for funder and partner communications, and contributing to grant proposals and reports
• Conducting literature reviews in support of meta-analyses, evidence syntheses, and grant proposals
• Supporting research staff with Lab-wide management tasks including mentoring new RAs, creating research and training resources, and supporting with recruitment

What they're looking for:

• Strong programming skills in R, combined with a willingness to learn other statistical software. Strong quantitative skills, including coursework in statistics, econometrics, or a related quantitative field
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials
• Excellent organizational skills
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in English
• Ability to seek resources and self-teach new statistical, analytical, and programming techniques
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and work in teams
• We are looking for a minimum commitment of two years for this position
• Familiarity with relational databases and structured data (e.g., SQL or equivalent experience working with multi-table datasets)
• Experience living or working in a developing country
• Experience with reproducible research workflows, version control (GitHub), and modern documentation tools (Quarto, R Markdown)
• Familiarity with meta-analytic methods or systematic review approaches
• Demonstrated ability to build data quality assurance systems and manage collaborative data projects

Benefits:

• Non-immigrant visa sponsorship for this role is subject to country-specific restrictions determined by the US Department of State.
• Full benefits
• Ability to take classes at a highly subsidized tuition rate