Research Associate, Military Analytics

WHO WE ARE: At Fors Marsh, we take on issues that matter. We are a team of researchers, advisors, and communicators working together to shape the systems that shape people's lives. We look at human behavior from all angles to design targeted solutions that influence decision-making and move people to action. We are committed to the problem, not just the project, and we are intentional about taking on work and forming partnerships that balance purpose, people, planet, and profit. We are a certified B Corporation, a Just employer, and a 2019–2024 Top Workplace awardee. We hold ourselves accountable to the values that have always defined us, and those values drive us to be the best possible versions of ourselves—for each other, our communities, our clients, and the world.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR: Fors Marsh is seeking an intelligent and motivated researcher with a background in quantitative social science to join our Military Analytics research team. Our Military Analytics team bridges the gap between traditional social science and data science, leveraging innovative analytic tools for research committed to the sustainment of our all-volunteer force and improving the health and well-being of Service members and DoD personnel. This individual’s primary responsibility will be conducting and reporting upon analyses of survey, behavioral, archival, demographic, and geographic data. This job is best suited for someone who enjoys integrating and analyzing data, applying innovative methods to solve challenging analytic problems and provide actionable recommendations, and is comfortable working collaboratively with team members and clients.

Responsibilities include:

• Working with a mixed team of data and social scientists to analyze and synthesize large amounts of data from a variety of complex sources including large-scale tracking surveys as well as geographic, behavioral, and administrative data through a variety of techniques.
• Preparing and analyzing data in R or Stata (R preferred) and interpreting results from descriptive and inferential analyses to identify patterns and solutions.
• Conducting market segmentation analyses and evaluating drivers of attitudes and behaviors.
• Working with geographic data (e.g., thematic mapping) through R, Stata, or a related GIS software platform.
• Working with complex survey data through R, Stata, or SAS.
• Communicating regularly with clients to understand their needs and responding promptly to client requests, sometimes working under tight deadlines to do so.
• Overseeing project tasks and collaborating with project team on a day-to-day basis to work to meet project deadlines
• Balancing roles and responsibilities across multiple concurrent studies.
• Anticipating potential barriers to project completion, proposing solutions to team leadership. Consistently striving to improve.
• Writing and editing written reports and professional briefings that summarize research findings for non-technical audiences and providing actionable recommendations to inform decision-making.
• Compiling analyses into client-ready tables and spreadsheets for client presentation and use in future reports and briefings.
• Upholding the highest standards of quality control for yourself and others. Providing quality control over syntax, analyses, and deliverables to ensure that all client products are accurate.

Qualifications:

• Master’s or bachelor’s degree in a social science field such as psychology, sociology, data/computer science, humanities, or other related fields.
  
• 2 or more years of post-graduation, practical research experience with applied social statistics within a professional environment (multivariate regression, descriptive statistics, data processing, and data analytics).
• Effective verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to identify and communicate key findings from research to non-technical audiences.
• Excellent analytic and dataset manipulation skills (e.g., recoding, cleaning) in at least one statistical software package (e.g., Stata, SPSS, SAS, R), including syntax-based analyses and data manipulation (e.g., collapsing, merging).
• Professional experience working with existing datasets and integrating from multiple diverse sources (experience working with various levels of geographic data preferred). Able to understand various data structures and common methods in data transformation.
• Experience building and executing automated analytic workflows is preferred.
• Experience creating visual and written summaries of research results (e.g., in PowerPoint and Word) that can be understood by non-technical audiences.
• Experience building dashboards in RShiny or a similar platf