PREP0004100 Applied Economics Postbac Research Assistant

PREP Research Associate

Opportunity No.: PREP0004100

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, and thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

The position will collaborate with NIST researchers and NIST’s external collaborators in a variety of topics relevant to their work including social scientists, engineers, and scientists—connecting economics to fundamental research, multi-disciplinary analysis, and decision support tools related to activities across a range of research topic areas, building and infrastructure, resilience, and decision science. Initial activities will include evaluating consumer preferences for product labeling and demonstrating the benefits and costs of alternatives.

The position is in the Applied Economics Office (AEO), a part of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at NIST, provides economic products and services through research and consulting to industry and government agencies in support of productivity enhancement, economic growth, and international competitiveness, with a focus on improving the life-cycle quality and economy of constructed facilities and manufacturing processes that support social and economic functions. The AEO is integrated within EL’s major research thrusts: energy conservation, community resilience planning, manufacturing, fire, building construction, and safety. The AEO delivers high quality research and tool development that informs and assists stakeholders in their decision-making processes.

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Applied Economics Postbac Research Assistant

Project Description:

The objective of this role is to support community resilience planning through the development of methods and tools that evaluate the economic impacts of disruptive events and persistent stressors, while accounting for stakeholder perceptions and associated decisions related to future event uncertainty and co-benefit (co-cost) valuation. There will be special focus on criteria and methods to improve the resilient performance of structural systems in the built environment while maintaining cost-effectiveness and supporting community-defined objectives in addition to resilience. Additionally, this researcher will work on the Hurricane Maria Investigation and Supplemental project on Hurricane Fionia and their impact on Puerto Rico.

Key responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, leading the following activities: 

• Analyzing data
• Reviewing relevant literature
• Designing data collection instruments (surveys)
• Writing reports and research articles
• Publishing within refereed journals and technical research series
• Communicating research at professional conferences

Desired Qualifications: 

• Must be a US citizen
• Bachelor’s degree in Economics
• At least one year of relevant research experience
• Proficiency in Stata (hypothesis testing, causal analysis, data visualization)
• Proficiency in Zotero or similar
• Proficiency in Excel (large scale data cleaning, validation, and visualization)
• At least one peer-reviewed publication in a professional journal
• At least one first author technical publication
• Experience in quantitative and qualitative data analysis
• At least one conference presentation
• Experience working with LLMs
• Proficiency in LaTeX (Overleaf)
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Logical thinking and problem solving
• Patience and attention to detail
• Excellent writing and communication skills

Other Details:

• Full-time: the participant is expected to work 40 hours a week
• Location: the participant will work at the NIST Gaithersburg Campus.
• Duration: this is expected to be a one-year position. Extensions are sometimes granted depending on the availability of funds.
• For questions related to the research project or the nature of the work in this position, please contact Dr. Christina Gore (christina.gore@morgan.edu). For questions related to the online application or NIST PREP more generally, please contact msu-nistprep@morgan.edu.

Privacy Act Statement

Authority: 15 U.S.C. § 278g-1(e)(1) and (e)(3) and 15 U.S.C. § 272(b) and (c)

Purpose: The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) which is designed to provide valuable laboratory experience and financial assistance to undergraduates, post-bachelor’s degree holders, graduate students, master’s degree holders, postdocs, and faculty.

PREP is a 5-year cooperative agreement between NIST laboratories and participating PREP Universities to establish a collaborative research relationship between NIST and U.S. institutions of higher education in the following disciplines including (but may not be limited to) biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, electronics, materials science, mathematics, nanoscale science, neutron science, physical science, physics, and statistics. This collection of information is needed to facilitate the administrative functions of the PREP Program.

Routine Uses: NIST will use the information collected to perform the requisite reviews of the applications to determine eligibility, and to meet programmatic requirements. Disclosure of this information is also subject to all the published routine uses as identified in the Privacy Act System of Records Notices: NIST-1: NIST Associates.

Disclosure: Furnishing this information is voluntary. When you submit the form, you are indicating your voluntary consent for NIST to use the information you submit for the purpose stated.