GIS Research Assistant

Position: Short-term RA position (1 to 2 months), subject to renewal based on mutual agreement. Salary competitive in line with London School of Economics and STICERD guidelines. The position can be remote or in London. The RA should be able to start working on the project no later than the end of May 2024.

Project lead: The RA will work closely with Lydia Assouad (London School of Economics), Giulia Buccione (Brown University), and Emma Smith (Harvard University)

Project fields: Empirical, development economics, environmental economics, political economy

Research question: Climate change is primarily a water crisis, with 1.8 billion people expected to be living in ‘’absolute’’ water scarcity by 2025. While water crises are expected to grow globally, in Jordan, the water crisis is current, and piped water is provided on “water days” only once or twice per week. In this project we combine rich administrative data on the water delivery infrastructure in Jordan with survey data, to causally estimate the impact of rising water scarcity on households’ socio-economic outcomes. The research focuses in particular on women’s outcomes, as women are the main managers of household water in this setting.

Status: The primary responsibility of the RA would be to manage, clean, and analyze GIS data on the water infrastructure in Jordan, to create specific dataset outputs and data visualizations as requested by the research team. Additional tasks may include identifying new external data sources and merging these with existing project data.

Qualifications:
• Completed or ongoing bachelor or master’s degree in economics or a related field.
• Training and expertise in quantitative research methods.
• Proficiency/competency in GIS softwares (QGIS or Arcgis) required
• Proficiency in STATA and/or R is strongly preferred
• Self-motivated, problem-solving mindset and ability to work independently
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Interest in applied microeconomic research is a plus
• Fluency in English. Fluency in Arabic is a plus.
Please note that the research team is available to provide mentorship and assistance in career development.

Application: Please provide a CV, short cover letter describing your experience using GIS, and contact information. If you can attach outputs you produced using GIS software, this is a plus. We will start reviewing applications as they come in.