Research Analytics Consultant

Grade: L

As a Research Analytics Consultant (RAC), you will draw on a broad set of technological, creative, and problem solving skills in order to facilitate and accelerate academic research at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB).

You will have the opportunity to work/consult with researchers, faculty, students, and staff in various disciplines on tasks such as high performance computing, data harvesting, data processing, data visualization, and application development. You will join a team of fellow RACs, data analysts, and project managers in Research Support Services, the School’s primary research support team. Your clients will include GSB faculty who are drawn from a broad spectrum of academic backgrounds, research interests, methodological specialties, and technical backgrounds. As a RAC, you will typically engage multiple faculty clients at a time, and these engagements might last anywhere from a few days to several months.

Your role will require you to listen carefully and critically in order to understand the faculty member’s research goals and the obstacles they face in:

• Machine learning algorithms
• API programming
• Web app development and deployment
• Automated web scraping
• Text feature extraction (OCR, NLP, regex, etc.)
• Parallel computing techniques
• Crowdsourcing

• Manage research support projects; work with faculty to determine long-term data collection and transformation goals; establish short-term priorities; and, deliver solutions to achieve these goals
• Implement novel computational approaches and analytical tools as required by the faculty’s research goals.
• Work with faculty and PhD students to design experiments and tests for their hypotheses.
• As necessary, initiate and lead projects around the development of new software tools or infrastructure resources that will expand research capabilities at the GSB.
• Design data structures for the storage and analysis of research data, and ensure the data’s integrity.
• Create documentation, demonstrations, and training materials for research datasets; partner with faculty and PhD students who work with these datasets to discover new knowledge.
• Work with faculty and students to answer questions about working with research datasets.
• Participate in presentations and demonstrations of the data and analytic solutions, primarily internally and occasionally at conferences or other institutions.
• Participate in collaborations with the Research Initiatives, other GSB research teams, the GSB Behavioral Lab, and IT partners.
• Might supervise or guide research staff, as needed; schedule and assign workload; set appropriate deadlines; review work for quality and timeliness.

• – Other duties may also be assigned

• Computer skills, including computational techniques for statistical analysis, scripting, and batch processing. Must be Unix/Linux fluent.
• Demonstrated experience with relational databases, data integration, and statistical programming.
• Ability to understand research methodology, experimental procedures and their limitations, and current needs of the social science research community.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Strong written and oral English communication skills.

• Experience performing data management and analysis in at least two of the following languages: python, R, Matlab, SQL, SAS, and/or Stata on Unix-based systems.
• Strong understanding of common computational social sciences techniques, such as logistic regression, structural equations, constrained optimization, factor analysis, network graphs, sentiment classification, random forests, and so forth.
• Experience using regular expressions and natural language programming concepts to extract information from text documents and other poorly structured data sources.
• Experience with finance and accounting data, such as CRSP, Compustat and SEC filings.
• Ability to write simple scripts in Python, bash, or Perl.
• Prior experience exploring and applying large-scale data analytics, ETL and warehousing tools such as Amazon EMR, Databricks, Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, etc.
• Experience or interest in full stack development of real-time web applications for research, using tools such as React, Redux, Flask, MongoDB, Node, Go etc.
• Ability to work independently and manage time effectively in a fast-paced environment with unpredictable workflows.
• Familiarity with all aspects with research data security, including deidentification, network and file system ACLs, IRB compliance, etc.Demonstrated commitment to continual learning and professional growth.

• Frequently perform desk based computer tasks, seated work and use light/ fine grasping. Occasionally stand, walk, and write by hand, lift, carry, push pull objects that weigh up to 10 pounds.

• – Consistent with its obligations under the law, the University will provide reasonable accommodation to any employee with a disability who requires accommodation to perform the essential functions of his or her job.

• May work extended or non-standard hours based on project or business needs. Occasional local travel may be required.

• Interpersonal Skills: Demonstrates the ability to work well with Stanford colleagues and clients and with external organizations.
• Promote Culture of Safety: Demonstrates commitment to personal responsibility and value for safety; communicates safety concerns; uses and promotes safe behaviors based on training and lessons learned.