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Empirical Research Fellow

Job Summary
This is an excellent opportunity for recent graduates who are interested in getting a PhD or pursuing research careers in the applied economic sciences. As an Empirical Research Fellow, you will work with faculty at the Kellogg School of Management on the preparation and analysis of data for economics-based research projects. You will generally work on a few projects at a time, with multiple faculty members, and your contributions could span all aspects of the research life cycle.
Research duties vary from project to project, but may include: collecting and validating new research datasets, preparing datasets for analysis, applying statistical or machine learning techniques to analyze datasets, preparing results for inclusion in presentations and publications, or improving existing code for greater efficiency or easier reproducibility.

If selected, you will be offered a one-year appointment, with the ability to renew for a second year based on performance. Successful applicants must have completed at least a bachelor’s degree by the employment start date.

Your application should include a cover letter that describes your academic career goals and how a predoctoral appointment as an Empirical Research Fellow will serve those goals. If there are particular researchers or types of research that interest you most, please let us know!

We are looking for applicants who have an interest in applying for a Ph.D. program in Economics, Finance, Quantitative Marketing, Accounting, Operations Research, or a related field in the pursuit of an academic research career. Prior coursework in Economics is a plus, but not necessary; in fact, we feel this position is well suited for someone who possesses strong quantitative skills and wants more exposure to Economics or Finance.
 
Specific Responsibilities
·        Work closely with faculty members as project team members on new or ongoing research projects.
·        Collect, maintain, and document original research datasets.
·        As necessary, merge together data from separate sources, derive new variables, or reformat data for analysis.
·        Proactively test data for integrity.
·        Create or replicate results of applied statistical or machine learning models.
·        Write programs to simulate the results of theoretical model and/or to solve constrained optimization problems.
·        Produce tables, figures, and/or other research outputs as needed.
·        Might assist faculty members with literature reviews or reviewing drafts of papers.
 
Required Qualifications
·        Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university, leading to a bachelor’s or higher degree.
 
Required Competencies
·        A long-term interest in conducting research in Economics, Finance, or a related field.
·        Ability to write code in at least one commonly used statistical programming language – such as R, Python, Stata, SAS, and/or Matlab.
·        Strong habits documenting and managing versions of datasets and program code.
·        Demonstrated ability to work independently to solve analytical problems.
·        Good understanding of applied statistical concepts.
 
Preferred Competencies
·        Prior experience working as a research assistant on a faculty research project or working independently on one’s own original research project.
·        Working knowledge of how to query and manipulate various data in various formats or data structures.
·        Experience working with lower-level or scripting programming languages – such as Python, bash, Java, or C.