Research Fellow, Institute for Global Sustainability

Boston University•Boston, MA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Institute for Global Sustainability is seeking a motivated, detail-oriented recent master’s graduate to support interdisciplinary research through the Clean Energy & Environment Legacy Transition (CELT) Initiative. The role focuses on clean energy, energy affordability, climate, environmental health, and the built environment, with research and applied data analysis supporting policy processes within Massachusetts state agencies, cities, and towns. The Research Fellow will work with large and complex administrative, socioeconomic, energy, environmental, health, geospatial, and remotely sensed datasets to investigate how energy systems, infrastructure, environmental conditions, and socioeconomic factors affect communities. The work may address energy affordability and burden, access to clean energy programs, environmental exposures, climate vulnerability, heat, air quality, housing, and disparities in environmental and health outcomes. The position combines data analysis, GIS and spatial analysis, remote sensing, coding, and data visualization. It involves translating complex, spatially varied data into actionable insights for researchers, policymakers, community partners, and the public. The Fellow will collaborate with interdisciplinary teams and contribute to analytical workflows and public-facing data tools relevant to energy affordability, environmental justice, climate resilience, public health, and equitable clean-energy transitions in Massachusetts.

Requirements

Master’s degree in computer science, data science, environmental studies, geography, GIS, public health, environmental health, energy policy, or a related field.
Strong programming and quantitative data analysis skills.
Experience working with real-world datasets, including cleaning, transformation, integration, and quality assurance.
Experience with GIS tools such as ArcGIS or QGIS and spatial data analysis.
Ability to work with and interpret data from multiple sources, including energy, environmental, health, demographic, and socioeconomic datasets.
Familiarity with data visualization tools such as Flourish, Tableau, Power BI, or similar platforms.
Ability to communicate technical and quantitative findings clearly to non-technical audiences.
Strong attention to detail and ability to manage multiple datasets, analytical tasks, and project priorities.

Nice To Haves

Interest or experience working with remote sensing, satellite imagery, or other Earth observation data.
Academic or professional experience combining computer science, data science, GIS, geography, environmental science, energy policy, public health, or related fields.
Experience analyzing public datasets such as state and local energy program data, utility or energy consumption data, U.S. Census data, environmental health surveillance data, climate data, or housing and built-environment datasets.
Experience analyzing energy affordability, energy burden, utility costs, energy insecurity, or equitable access to clean energy programs.
Experience integrating spatial data into analyses of energy, climate, environmental health, or public policy issues.
Experience with remote sensing or satellite-derived datasets, including land surface temperature, vegetation, land cover, impervious surfaces, or other environmental indicators.
Familiarity with spatial statistics, geospatial modeling, or spatial data processing using Python, R, or similar programming languages.
Experience integrating datasets across geographic scales and developing indicators or metrics for policy analysis.
Familiarity with web-based mapping, visualization, or dashboard development.
Experience working with large, complex, or longitudinal datasets.
Strong interest in climate policy, energy affordability and equity, environmental justice, environmental health, climate and health, or community resilience.
Interdisciplinary background and hands-on experience analyzing and integrating diverse datasets; comfort with tabular and spatial data and interest in applying GIS, remote sensing, coding, statistical and spatial analysis, and visualization to research and policy questions.
Experience with interactive visualization and dashboard development.

Responsibilities

Analyze large-scale datasets related to energy use and affordability, energy burden, clean energy programs, climate conditions, environmental exposures, public health indicators, housing, and socioeconomic characteristics.
Clean, preprocess, integrate, and validate energy, environmental, health, demographic, and administrative datasets.
Conduct GIS and spatial analysis of geographic patterns and relationships among energy infrastructure, environmental conditions, climate hazards, public health, and community characteristics.
Work with spatial data at multiple geographic scales, including census geographies, parcels, buildings, neighborhoods, and municipalities; incorporate remote sensing and Earth observation data when relevant.
Develop analytical methods and metrics to assess energy affordability, energy burden, access to energy efficiency and clean energy programs, and disparities in energy and environmental outcomes.
Integrate geospatial, energy, environmental, health, and socioeconomic datasets to investigate infrastructure, exposure, vulnerability, and community well-being.
Write and maintain code for data cleaning, analysis, spatial processing, reproducible workflows, and research reports.
Develop maps, data visualizations, dashboards, and other communication tools for technical and non-technical audiences.
Support development of public-facing data tools and interactive resources communicating energy, environmental, climate, and public health trends and program impacts.
Collaborate with researchers, policy analysts, data scientists, GIS specialists, stakeholders, and community partners to integrate datasets and develop analytical approaches.