Yale’s Office of Institutional Research (OIR) is looking for a full-time, permanent research associate to join our team. This position would be a great fit for someone with graduate-level education in the social sciences, statistics, education research, or a related area who is interested in working in an applied research role outside of the tenure track.
Here is a link to the job posting:
This is an exciting role, covering a wide range of institutional data types, statistical techniques, and audiences. OIR provides information to support university decision-making through a variety of analytic activities, data-gathering tasks, and research projects. We operate almost as a think tank or consulting group within the University, helping the University to improve.
This position has a particular focus on gathering and analyzing experiential data through quantitative and qualitative assessment methods. You might be particularly interested in this job if:
- You have a strong belief that when it comes to helping someone use data to make a decision, the way research findings are communicated can be equally as important as the methodological rigor needed to design and run the study. You strive to find the most effective way to present information for a particular audience, often relying on your coding skillset to iterate efficiently through different visuals.
- You love collaborating to help campus partners refine and test a research question. You have discovered a love of survey design and you are looking for a way to lean into that while maintaining a portfolio that includes a variety of applied research methods.
- Your background is in research methods, with an emphasis on using coded processes and tools such as R/Python/Shiny. You are looking for a role that will allow you to develop both of those skill sets in an applied setting.
- You have a broad skillset in an area within or adjacent to the social sciences. Your favorite technical toolkit revolves around Rstudio. You are looking for a role where your day-to-day will be a mix of diving into a question on your own and working in small teams, on both specific questions and large-scale projects, to broadly support institutional transparency.
- You thrive working within a team that simultaneously values deep expertise, close partnership with stakeholders, and continuous learning. You value opportunities to use research or data science skills to inform decisions in support of a higher education mission.
This role is available to be filled as soon as possible, but we have considerable flexibility on timing. If you are interested but wouldn’t be able to start until spring of 2024, please still consider applying. Our team is based on Yale’s campus in New Haven. Our work mode currently is hybrid, with team members expected to work from campus at least 3 days per week. However, that may evolve based on factors such as team needs, University policy, and public health guidance.
If this role sounds interesting to you but you have no idea what “institutional research” is or how your background relates to it, you are welcome to contact Lily Svensen at lily.svensen@yale.edu for an informal conversation about what the job would entail. Very few people have ever heard of this field, much less considered it as a career, until they happen upon it through word of mouth. That is a very common experience among folks working in this field, who come from a wide range of academic and professional backgrounds.
