Research Associate - Demand For Cooling

As global temperatures climb, the growing need for cooling is straining energy resources and driving up greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding how households consume air cooling and respond to management interventions is crucial for designing effective policies and technologies. J- PAL South Asia is partnering with Tata Power to run a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving urban households in Mumbai to assess their cooling demand and examine how locus of control influences energy use. The research study is led by principal investigators Dr Teevrat Garg (University of California San Diego), Dr Maulik Jagnani (Tufts University), Dr Shefali Khanna (London School of Economics) and Dr Patrick Behrer (World Bank)

Key Responsibilities

Research Associates work closely with the research manager, academic researchers and other field staff to perform a variety tasks including, but not limited to:

Research Design and Data Management

• Designing survey questionnaires, conducting qualitative research, running pilot/backchecking exercises, refining study design and survey instruments
• Ensuring that the project complies with research protocols related to data collection and security
• Supervising data collection and data entry to ensure good data quality
• Work with datasets, prepare and run codes regularly for daily data cleaning and analysis in STATA
• Ability to analyze and interpret data using statistical packages like STATA and produce output, including graphs and tables

Managerial / Operational

• Maintaining relationship with partner organizations
• Managing teams: Recruit, train, and supervise both field-based and data operations teams consisting of project assistants, field managers, field-based surveyors, data entry operators and other field and office staff
• Overseeing the on-ground implementation of the intervention in accordance with the research design in association with our partner organization. Further, making sure the project is on track in t terms of timelines.
• Liaising with field staff and collaborating with them including regular travel to research field sites; focus of work is to advise on quality control of data collection practices.
• Supporting the project in design the survey instruments and coding it in Qualtrics
• Any other task as assigned by the PIs

Desired Qualifications

• Resourceful, self-motivated and able to manage multiple tasks efficiently
• Experience managing or conducting data collection in the field
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English and Hindi
• Experience working with Stata and/or R preferred
• Attention to detail and ability to stay organized
• Desire to learn and develop new skills
• Bachelor's/Master's degree in economics or related fields
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials