Senior Researcher, CIRCLE - Tufts University

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life prepares Tufts students to become active citizens and community leaders. As the only university-wide college of its kind, its mission is to engage Tufts students in meaningful community building, public service experiences, and transformational learning. It conducts and supports groundbreaking research on civic and political participation and forges innovative community partnerships. Tisch College is a national leader in civic education, whose model and research are setting the standard for higher education’s role in civic engagement.

CIRCLE (the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) is an influential force and a premier source of information—facts, trends, assessments, and practices—related to youth civic engagement. CIRCLE reaches both academic and practitioner audiences through both academic and popular media, including a large number of features in major news outlets. Founded in 2001, CIRCLE has been part of Tisch College since 2008 and CIRCLE staff are fully integrated into the organizational life of Tisch College and Tufts University, offering CIRCLE staff a number of opportunities to develop skills in and outside of research. The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life prepares students in all fields of study for lifetimes of active citizenship, promotes new knowledge in the field, educates Tufts students and beyond for a life of active citizenship, and applies our research to evidence-based practice in our programs, community partnerships, and advocacy efforts. Tisch College's work is central to Tufts University's mission. Tisch College offers several opportunities to engage Tufts students in meaningful community building and other civic and political experiences, explore personal commitments to civic participation, and take on active and effective roles in public life and to engage faculty in expanded active citizenship research and teaching. Tisch College also seeks to influence higher education in the US and abroad to embrace active citizenship mainly through its work via Institute for Democracy in Higher Education.

This is a full time, in person, hybrid position. This requires you to be in the office 3 days per week, remote 2 days.

This is a two-year (24 months) limited term position with renewal based upon continued funding and performance. This is a grant funded position and is not eligible for severance pay.  

The Senior Researcher will work with CIRCLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), a research-based think tank that studies how young people in the United States develop knowledge, skills, and dispositions for effective democratic engagement. CIRCLE's work covers a broad range of disciplines and fields, from K-12 civic education, youth voting, youth organizing, youth and civic media, to community characteristics that promote civic development. Although CIRCLE studies civic development and engagement of all youth, the central focus of its work is on expanding access to civic learning and engagement opportunities especially for marginalized youth from various backgrounds. As part of this position, the new Senior Researcher will directly support the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), a signature project which is both a service to higher education institutions – providing colleges universities with institution-level data on their students' registration and voting – and a national database for research with over 10 million college students each election year. NSLVE currently includes over 1,200 campuses from across the country.

Under leadership of the Director and senior research staff, the quantitative researcher will contribute to the development and execution of all phases of research & evaluation projects and technical assistance activities, including the core activities of quantitative research and analyses. They will be directly involved in the communication and dissemination of data driven insights to various stakeholders within the field of higher education and civic engagement. Working with the team, they will create research data pipelines, data instruments and contribute to a wide range of empirical analyses. This is not a software development position, but rather it is a research position with a strong programming component. This person will contribute to data cleaning, data quality checks and documentations. They will participate in discussion and co-creation of coding and analysis schemes.  The Senior Researcher will work on multiple projects simultaneously and support CIRCLE’s overall operation and will support management of project timelines and deliverables.

Responsibilities include:

• Serves as the lead quantitative researcher on projects focused on voter registration and civic engagement in higher education, management and analysis of hierarchical, relational and/or administrative data sets, research design and literature reviews, and report production
• Investigates, researches, gathers, analyzes and summarizes data about various aspects of youth civic engagement in support of information and research needs of practitioners, policymakers, journalists, students, general public and other who request information
• Prepares reports and presentations for a variety of audiences by summarizing statistical data and findings in written reports, blog posts and oral presentations to various clients regarding youth civic engagement and learning
• Develops and maintains databases for various reporting purposes such as youth voter turnout and civic engagement rates by various age, and demographic groups, and tracking of laws relevant to youth civic engagement using data from various sources such as the Census Current Population Survey, American Community Survey, Catalist (voter files), IPEDS, and other survey datasets such as ANES, NAEP, etc., ensuring accuracy and meeting deadlines
• Assists in design and establishment of information systems that manage, store and retrieve research-related data and documents for analysis to answer ad hoc informational requests and longitudinal tracking
• Identifies and reviews measurement tools, designs quantitative and qualitative research tools for data collection (e.g. survey instruments, interview or focus group protocols, and structured field observation tools.)
• Meets with clients to outline parameters of the research study, including design of both the formative and summative evaluations
• Participates in team meetings, college-wide meetings and committee work

• Knowledge and skills as typically acquired through completion of an advanced degree in social science, statistics, data science, or related field and 3+ years of experience OR  5+ years of experience in data science and/or quantitative research
• Excellent quantitative skills, including experience in descriptive statistics, data management and statistical modeling; we expect high proficiency with programming and syntax
• Experience working with large datasets, querying tools, and programming language such as R and/or Python
• Strong foundation in quantitative methods and general understanding of qualitative methods
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including an ability to write clear and concise policy and/or technical memos and documents for diverse stakeholder audiences including higher education administrators and policymakers
• Experience with research design, testing data collection instruments, writing and publishing of research briefs
• Demonstrated ability to work on several projects simultaneously and meet demanding timelines
• Strong organizational skills and high level of attention to detail; flexibility to manage multiple priorities, sometimes simultaneously, under deadlines

• Graduate Degree in data analytics, data science, statistics, social science or related field
• A broad understanding of higher education and election administration in the U.S
• Demonstrated data management and data visualization skills; experience in developing and co-managing a large database system
• Passion for using research to achieve equity in civic opportunities through systemic changes
• Experience with partnership-oriented research
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects
• Demonstrated experience making findings visually accessible to a broad audience
• Experience in developing and maintaining data management systems
• Interest in higher education, diversity and inclusion, and civic learning and engagement