Research Associate at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

Job Desciption

Eligibility: Position open to all nationalities; Kenyan nationals and East African citizens strongly encouraged apply
About Innovations for Poverty Action: Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is an international nonprofit research organization dedicated to discovering and promoting effective solutions to global poverty problems.

About the Project: Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) is a US-based non-profit organization with a mission to support smallholder farmers in developing countries by providing customized information and services that increase productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability.

PAD is working on a new model for agricultural extension: delivering farmers personalized agricultural advice via their mobile phones.

PAD implements this model in collaboration with partner organizations and gathers evidence on its impact. PAD aims to improve the lives of 100 million farmers in developing countries with its services.

In Kenya, PAD has partnered with IPA to implement a research project in Western Kenya aiming at delivering localized agricultural information (including, but not limited to, fertilizer, lime, pest management and other recommendations) to farmers.

About the position: The Research Associate under the general supervision of the Research Coordinator and within the limits of Innovations for Poverty Action-Kenya (IPAK) policies and procedures coordinates the facilitation of field activities, data support for the project, and functions within IPAK.

Below is a list of some of the general duties and responsibilities of the Research Associate, to be carried out as needed according to the determination of the Research Coordinator.

Duties

• Assist with overall project management, monitoring and implementation.
• Track progress of project activities and regularly inform Research Coordinator of progress.
• Coordinate field logistics, including the implementation of phone and in-person surveys with large samples of respondents.
• Manage, support and train a team of field staff.
• Implement systems to manage, clean, and analyze data related to project activities.
• Ensure smooth and timely data flow between various project activities.
• Assist with survey programming (e.g. SurveyCTO).
• Monitor indicators of staff performance (especially productivity and back-check verifications).
• Implement research protocols to ensure quality of all data collection activities.
• Prepare summary statistics and other analyses related to project outcomes.
• Keep track of project expenses and prepare financial reports.
• Work closely with PAD Kenya country office team and Principal Investigators.

Job Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Psychology, Statistics, Political Science, Computer Science or a related field.
• Proficiency in STATA, Excel, and ODK or SurveyCTO.
• Strong proven quantitative skills and enjoy working with data.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
• Excellent management, critical thinking and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work under time pressure and solve problems in field.
• Excellent organizational skills, detail-oriented with ability to work both independently and in groups and to be supervised remotely.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and team player.

Desired

• Proficiency in R, SAS or Python.
• Experience with spatial analysis and GIS.
• Experience working on agricultural issues in developing countries (particularly sub-Saharan Africa).
• Swahili language skills.
• Knowledge of statistics.
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials.