Research Assistant (Housing and Communities Division)
About The Position
The Urban Institute's Housing and Communities Division is seeking a DC-based research assistant (Step 1 / Research track) with strong quantitative, coding, and analytic problem-solving skills. This position will work from Urban’s offices in L’Enfant Plaza two or more days a week. The research assistant will assist senior researchers and research teams in successfully executing defined research tasks, with an emphasis on managing and analyzing data, producing clear tables and summaries, writing and reviewing code, and using emerging tools—including AI, when appropriate and consistent with Urban policies—to troubleshoot code and improve efficiency. The person hired for this position will be assigned to one of the Division’s research practice areas and will work across several other practice areas. All staff work on multiple projects—assignments include various research methods, datasets, and topic areas and are made based on the needs of the Division, taking into consideration a research assistant’s skills and interests. The Housing and Communities Division at the Urban Institute equips federal, state and local policymakers, practitioners, advocates, media, and philanthropy with the rigorous research they need to advance affordable, healthy, and resilient housing and places with reliable infrastructure, equitable economic opportunities, supportive financial systems, and sustainable land use policies. More information on our six practice areas (Climate and Communities; Community and Economic Development; Fair Housing, Land Use, and Transportation; Housing Finance Policy Center; Preventing and Ending Homelessness; and Thriving Places) can be found on our website. This position is based in Washington, DC, and candidates who are able to follow a hybrid work schedule of two or more days per week in the office are strongly preferred.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree or associate’s degree with equivalent experience required, preferably in Public Policy, Urban Studies, Urban Planning, Data Science, Sociology, Economics, Statistics, Environmental Studies, Geography, Social Welfare, Education, Psychology, Business, or a related field of inquiry.
- Demonstrated quantitative research skills, including comfort with descriptive statistics, data cleaning, and basic data analysis.
- Experience managing, cleaning, merging, documenting, and analyzing large datasets; experience with administrative, survey, geographic, longitudinal, or other complex data is a plus.
- Experience writing, running, documenting, and reviewing code in statistical packages or programming languages such as R, Stata, SAS, and/or Python; willingness to learn new tools and follow team coding standards.
- Ability to produce clear tables, charts, maps, and other data summaries and explain what the results do and do not show.
- Sound judgment using AI tools to support coding and analytic problem solving, including awareness of confidentiality, data security, and the need to verify AI-generated outputs.
- Initiative to suggest improvements or innovations on assigned tasks, including coding, data management, workflow, and quality-control improvements.
- Strong time management skills and high level of professionalism, organization, attention to detail, motivation, creativity, and self-confidence.
- Ability to work effectively, both on teams and independently, and simultaneously on multiple projects with changing work assignments, deadlines, and team environments.
- Strong interest and/or experience in one or more of the following topics: housing and housing-related assistance programs, housing finance, homelessness, demographic and population studies, urban planning and land use, community economic development, city governance and public-sector capacity, climate change, environmental justice, housing and neighborhoods as a platform for other household and societal outcomes, structural racism, and inequality.
- Bilingual abilities, although not required, are a plus; willingness and ability to travel when conditions make travel safe is also expected.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with administrative, survey, geographic, longitudinal, or other complex data is a plus.
- Bilingual abilities
- Willingness and ability to travel when conditions make travel safe
Responsibilities
- Collect, clean, manage, and analyze qualitative and quantitative data, with particular emphasis on working with large administrative, survey, program, and other policy-relevant datasets.
- Write, run, document, and review reproducible code to manage and analyze data in software such as R, Stata, SAS, and/or Python; troubleshoot code and improve analytic workflows.
- Use AI tools responsibly and in accordance with Urban policies to support coding problem solving, identify possible approaches, check syntax, and make routine tasks more efficient while protecting confidential data.
- Produce basic and intermediate tables, charts, maps, and descriptive statistics; summarize key patterns and provide clear first-pass interpretations of data for research teams and nontechnical audiences.
- Support quality assurance by checking code, reviewing data outputs, documenting analytic decisions, reconciling results, and identifying inconsistencies or data limitations.
- Contribute to literature reviews, field work such as interviews and site visits, publications for different audiences, research proposals, events, project management, meeting summaries, and other tasks as assigned.
- Completion of logistical tasks for research proposals, internal and external research events, and research management.
- Completion of administrative tasks such as tracking project timelines, project reporting, taking and summarizing meeting minutes, and other tasks as assigned.
- Independent time management and collaboration with teams to prioritize and complete multiple tasks.
Benefits
- Generous paid time off
- Nine federal holidays
- Medical (including prescription) insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Transit benefits
- 403(b) retirement plan participation immediately
- Generous employer contribution to 403(b) after six months of service and 500 hours, with immediate vesting
- Health advocate
- Personal finance coaching
- Employee Assistance Program
- Educational assistance for undergraduate and graduate degree programs
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
Associate degree
