Senior Research Specialist, BDI

Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) seeks multiple State Leads to provide oversight and additional coordination in conjunction with BDI management and operations teams. This position will provide additional technical support to ensure continued information flow between monitoring, analysis, and decision makers. In particular, BDI state leads will help explore collaborative options to ensure existing monitoring efforts are successfully integrated into the broader mitigation and resilience environment in their specific state of focus. 

Key Deliverables:

• Bi-weekly State-Specific SitRep highlighting key events and trends in political violence to inform on-the-ground activities.  Help to develop a state specific research guide, and build a list of resources in the specific assigned state.
• Creation and expansion of a State Specific SitRep distribution list, in collaboration with partners working on political violence mitigation in the state. Ensuring key civil society and local leaders are connected with timely, action oriented, accessible research on political violence in their state.   Support for meetings or additional analysis in periods of rapid-response, as mutually agreed. 
• Consistent support and verbal briefings to stakeholder coordination meetings and other state-based groups, including on emerging trends and other issues of concern. State lead may directly brief and join tables, or ensure links to other BDI staff as appropriate.  These may be in person or remote meetings.
• Other direct monitoring and analysis at the state level, with support from additional research associates, to include but not limited to:

Primary work:

• Edit/review/guide state trends write ups
• Understanding and communicating the social, political, economic and other impacts of a given conflict as well as the wider conflict context.
• As appropriate, producing and contextualizing trends over time by including quantitative analysis of longitudinal data.

Additional work with support from research associates:

• Monitor news sources and secondary reporting for relevant events in a particular geographic area, and respond to requests from partners related to rapid alerts.
• Identify useful resources, analysis, and information of relevance.
• Reviewing and summarizing incidents and providing external links for further exploration. 

Minimum Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience in many or all of the following core competencies required to successfully complete the project:
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Reliably able to meet project deadlines
• Collaborative  and consensus-building decision making
• Ability to work independently to locate and interpret information from multiple sources
• Familiarity with a variety of social media platforms
• Ability to evaluate source credibility
• Analytical and critical thinking skills that aim to contextualize ongoing events
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel)
• Familiarity with Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, and Forms)
• Familiarity with common research tools (NexusUni, ProQuest, Google News Alerts)
• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in a related field
• 3-5+ years of experience in research, policy, community engagement, or related role, ideally in or related to a specific state

Desired Qualifications:

• Significant state-specific knowledge, networks, or experience in one of the following states:
  • Wisconsin
  • Georgia
  • Michigan
  • Arizona
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • North Carolina

Timeline: 

• Start date for the position is ASAP. The role is envisioned as a one-year minimum engagement, with opportunities for renewal.  

No matter who you are, BDI is a place you can call home. We know that our unique perspectives make us stronger, smarter, and well-positioned for success. We value and rely on the collective voices of our team to help guide our work on challenging issues. That’s why we’re proud Princeton is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. EEO IS THE LAW