Research Associate

CarbonPlan

8d•Remote

About The Position

CarbonPlan is a nonprofit organization using science and data to accelerate climate action. Our team analyzes the design and implementation of climate programs across the public and private sector, and builds open datasets, models, and interactive tools. Our work currently focuses on carbon accounting and climate impacts. In both, we aim to ensure the scientific integrity and transparency of climate services and solutions. As climate impacts accelerate, it has become urgent to understand current and future risk at the level of individual buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. But even as public need grows, climate risk data is increasingly privatized — and expensive, opaque, and unvetted. In response, we built the first fully open platform for estimating wildfire risk to U.S. buildings. Now we are expanding this work to inform adaptation and mitigation policy, with a focus on the intersection of climateრობlem and affordability. As a Research Associate, you will be responsible for research tasks that support this area of work, and also help scope and implement other projects to inform decision-making around climate impacts and climate solutions. You will report to Grayson Badgley, Research Scientist, and work closely with other members of our collaborative, interdisciplinary team.

Requirements

Passion for our mission.
A degree or training in the Earth sciences, environmental science, data science, statistics, economics, or another field relevant to climate solutions and impacts.
Strong non-academic written and verbal communication skills.
Experience conducting interdisciplinary and/or policy-relevant research.
Experience with data analysis, and demonstrated attention to detail when working with data.
Experience with scientific programming (e.g., Python) or other relevant coding experience.
Ability to hold multiple responsibilities and meet deadlines while working remotely.
Curiosity, collegiality, and an affinity for working in highly collaborative and cross-functional environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience working directly on climate risk modeling or adaptation.
Experience thinking about the political economy of climate change.
Experience at the boundary of science and decision-making processes.
Experience with academic research and publication processes.
Experience with scientific Python, Jupyter notebooks, and related tools.
Experience with git, GitHub, and testing frameworks.
Experience with open source software development.

Responsibilities

Assist in research on climate impacts. Initial areas of focus will include at least one of the following: climate risk modeling and the private risk analytics industry, wildfire adaptation and mitigation, and scoping potential new work.
Contribute to CarbonPlan research articles, tools, blog posts, and scientific journal articles.
Support efforts to engage media, research, and decision-making communities.
Work collaboratively with other team members at CarbonPlan and external partners.