Climate Nexus is a nonprofit strategic communications group dedicated to changing the conversation on climate change and clean energy solutions in the United States. Climate Nexus is seeking a survey scientist for its Campaigns & Strategies team.
Our team leads long-term narrative campaigns to change public perception and accelerate the transition from fossil fuels. We specialize in media outreach and messaging, government affairs and politics, research and polling, and opposition strategy.
Climate Nexus was created to be the behind-the-scenes connector to ensure coherent, effective climate communications and to elevate the work of a broad network of partners, including youth groups, environmental justice allies, cities and state leaders, and more. Climate Nexus provides pro bono support to organizations that work on climate change and clean energy and believes the “story” of climate change is the foundation on which meaningful action is built. Our job is to tell that story to as many people as possible.
Climate Nexus is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to age, sex, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, military/veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.
Why apply: There has never been a more important time to be working on climate change; both the public will and the urgent need for action are high. But opposition forces with seemingly endless resources are stalling critical policy action on climate. We need the help of talented, committed and justice-oriented individuals who agree that data, polling, message research, and analytics have a crucial role to play in communicating the threat and mobilizing the public and decision-makers to seize this opportunity for climate action.
About the role:
Climate Nexus is looking to add a survey researcher and data wizard with strong coding skills to support our partner services and quantitative projects across the organization. In this role you will manage the survey research back-end and be a go-to expert on all things data. You will get into the weeds to apply polling best practices, including programming surveys, assessing data collection, applying survey weights, running A/B tests, analyzing survey responses, developing visuals with ggplot, performing statistical analyses, making dashboards, using SQL to manage data, and many other applied quantitative methods. You will also assist in research project planning by helping to design samping plans and survey instruments.
This role requires a positive attitude, the willingness to help teammates, and the utmost attention to detail. It also requires managing multiple projects at once and working with internal and external stakeholders. The ideal candidate will have an entrepreneurial spirit with an eye towards improving current processes/products and developing new ones.
The successful candidate will also demonstrate a commitment to Climate Nexus’ values, the ability to respectfully communicate across racial, cultural, and other lines of difference, and an understanding of how survey research can be a tool for impacted communities to advance their work and address historic racial and environmental injustices.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Data Analysis/Programming/Infrastructure (60%)
- Analyze and scrub data using R
- Build survey toplines and crosstabs
- Develop R-scripts to automate survey processes and analysis
- Conduct background research on data/weighting sources as needed
- Oversee controlled experiments and regression analysis, including A/B testing
- Create data visualizations such as charts for PowerPoints and dashboards for data presentations using R/Shiny-R (ggplot, leaflet, etc.)
- Serve as lead data manager and go-to subject expert
Survey Research (40%)
- Design, program, and field surveys using Qualtrics or Alchemer
- Help partners think about potential survey topics and research questions
- Participate in polling calls and presentations
- Work with internal stakeholders and affiliate partners to develop questionnaires
- Support the development of multiple questionnaires in a deadline-driven environment
- Analyze question wording and apply best practices to reduce non-sampling bias
ATTRIBUTES
Required:
- 3-5 years professional experience using R (preferred) or other statistical programming languages (Python, STATA, etc.) for data management, analysis, and visualization
- 3-5 years professional experience in political polling, market research, insights, and/or quantitative social science research
- Familiarity with sampling, weighting, and analyzing survey data
- Comfortable with descriptive and inferential statistics
- Experience with statistical methods including regression analysis and A/B testing
- Highly detail-oriented and comfortable working in a deadline-driven environment
- Curiosity, and willingness to learn new technical skills, statistical methods, and programming languages
- Demonstrated commitment to advancing social change/racial equity (eg, through research, data analysis, or other pursuits)
Preferred:
- Background in a quantitative and/or social science field (e.g., economics, statistics, sociology, political science, computational social science)
- Experience with data pipelines (APIs, Amazon S3, relational databases, cloud infrastructure such as DigitalOcean)
- Experience developing questionnaires for primary data collection
- Strong verbal and written communication skills with ability to translate polling data into actionable intelligence
- Passion for opinion research, and deep respect for survey respondents
Location: Remote. Occasional travel to our New York and/or D.C. offices may be required.
Salary range: Approximately $90,000-$100,000, commensurate with experience. Climate Nexus offers a generous benefits package, including paid vacation, personal and sick leave; standard health, dental, and vision packages; generous employer contributions to 401k retirement accounts; parental leave; and commuter transit benefit.
Applicants should submit their resume and cover letter as a PDF or Microsoft word file using the form below. Review of applications will begin the week of April 10, and applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
Climate Nexus is a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an equal opportunity employer.