Partnership for Battery Action, Research and Methods Lead

Global Development Incubator • Washington, DC

1d • Remote

About The Position

The Partnership for Battery Action (Pb Action) is seeking a Research & Methods Lead to build the scientific basis of the Battery Index, a critical tool for assessing the safety of used lead-acid battery (ULAB) recyclers. This role will design and standardize the methodology for assessing and classifying recyclers, ensuring its reliability across different contexts and under scrutiny. The Battery Index aims to influence buyers, investors, and regulators to promote safer recycling practices and protect children from lead poisoning. The role involves refining protocols for air and soil sampling, blood lead level testing, and developing a classification system based on collected data. The successful candidate will also manage in-country execution, train field teams, maintain data systems, and collaborate with the lead pollution research community. This is a full-time equivalent contract position, incubated by the Global Development Incubator (GDI), with a minimum 1-year term and potential for international travel.

Requirements

• 5+ years of post-graduate experience in a leadership role within the lead poisoning elimination landscape.
• Deep understanding of what high-quality, reliable environmental research requires, ideally including exposure assessment or environmental sampling.
• A graduate degree in environmental engineering, environmental science, environmental chemistry, epidemiology, public health, or a related field, or equivalent applied experience.
• A track record of executing research in low-resource environments, and the judgment to adapt protocols to field reality without compromising the data.
• Comfort analyzing environmental and health datasets with tools like R, Python, or Stata, and designing data collection that supports rigorous analysis.
• Strong project management skills, including managing simultaneous workstreams across countries and following through with excellence.
• Ability to clearly communicate research objectives, protocols, and findings to field teams, implementers, regulators, funders, and the research community.
• Comfort in a startup environment, working well with a team and taking initiative; a self-starter.
• Team player who enjoys collaborating with and learning from diverse groups of people with different skillsets, with examples of working in settings where collective goals were achieved.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with heavy-metal exposure or lead specifically.
• Familiarity with human subjects research and IRB processes.
• Work experience in West Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia.

Responsibilities

• Refine Pb Action's existing air and soil sampling protocols to balance data reliability with feasible field application, including sample sizes, sampling technology, and QA/QC.
• Determine how to partner with local civil society organizations and government entities to support their capacity-building and mutual learning about ULAB facilities’ lead poisoning.
• Define the Battery Index approach to worker and community blood lead sampling, including data reliability, ethical review and informed consent, and community engagement.
• Build a rigorous, standardized process for evaluating sample data and converting multiple data streams into a recommended recycler classification, with final decisions made together with Pb Action leadership.
• Manage in-country execution of soil, air, and blood sampling in multiple geographies.
• Train and oversee enumerators and field consultants, coordinate laboratory analysis, and support execution on the ground.
• Maintain clean, auditable datasets and clearly documented protocols so the methodology replicates consistently as the Index scales across markets.
• Work with the lead pollution research community to identify collaborations, draw in relevant research and technology, and help build the evidence base in a nascent field.

Benefits

• As an independent contractor of GDI the successful candidate will not receive health or other benefits from GDI and will be responsible for their own taxes.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior