Job Title: Research Associate
Reports to: Director - Research, CSBC

Overview of CSBC:
The Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University - India’s leading liberal arts University - is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The vision of CSBC is to establish an institution, based out of India that is globally reputed for thought leadership and excellence in impactful behaviour change interventions for low-income and marginalized populations. The Centre is focused on bringing new capabilities such as behavioural science, design thinking, advanced data analytics and responsive feedback to governments, practitioners and donors to help better design and optimize behaviour change interventions. We work closely with Central and State Governments as well as other stakeholders in the areas of nutrition, sanitation, financial inclusion, maternal & newborn care, data privacy and agriculture.

Project Context:
CSBC has recently partnered with the Center for Decision Research (CDR) at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business to establish a Behavioural Research Initiative for engaging in various research-related projects and programmes.

This partnership includes, but is not limited to the following kinds of collaborations:
1. Short and Long-term Faculty Exchange
2. Collaborative Research and Discovery, Learning and Teaching
3. Participant surveys to collect data
4. Co-hosted conferences, workshops and seminars
5. Generation of new knowledge and its expeditious dissemination for the public's benefit,including through academic publications.

Role and Responsibilities:
The Research Associate would be responsible to oversee the full gamut of activities under this partnership from coordination with the CDR team to design, implementation and analysis of different projects under this collaboration.
1. Supporting the development of experimental design protocols for research projects
a. Organizing joint ideation workshops between CSBC and CDR Teams
b. Conducting literature reviews to deepen understanding of the behavioural science evidence base for identified project areas
c. Drafting, piloting and programming measurement instruments for the lab lab-in-the-field and field experiments
d. Conducting sample size calculations
e. Devising implementation and deployment plans
2. Supporting the execution of the lab, lab-in-the-field and field experiments:
a. Coordinating with the CDR Team and different Project Leads for discussing research requirements and providing regular updates
b. Planning and managing recruitment of subjects for different studies based on the research requirements

c. Ensuring smooth delivery of the data collection process in line with the protocols
d. Conducting regular quality control checks (on data entry and randomization during the data collection phase)
e. Coordinating with enumerators and subjects
3. Analysing secondary and primary data to support with hypothesis validation
a. Carrying out programming necessary for the collection of outcome data (in particular for lab and online experiments)
b. Assisting with development of pre-analysis plans and cleaning and archiving data
c. Carrying out statistical analysis of data using Python, R or Javascript programming based on the pre-analysis plans
d. Preparing data visuals; and organising and submitting replication datasets and codebooks

4. Supporting dissemination efforts of findings through preparation of reports/presentations/ papers/ articles, etc.
A person in this position will be expected to spend some of his/her work time on contributing to other ongoing work at the Centre.

Required Qualifications and Skills:
1. A Bachelor's/Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, mathematics, statistics, or related fields.
2. Experience of programming online surveys and virtual lab experiments in oTree, zTree, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, SurveyCTO, etc.
3. Extensive experience with statistical analysis software (such as R).
4. Familiarity with randomized controlled trials/clinical trials/quasi-experiments.
5. Excellent management and organisational skills along with strong quantitative skills.
6. Flexible, self-motivated, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and be a team player.
7. Ability to excel in unstructured and changing environments.
8. Some conversational-level skills in regional languages.
9. Ability to give and receive constructive feedback.

Additional Desired Skills and Experience:
1. Familiarity with software designed for recruiting and managing the subject pool
2. Experience of managing large databases.
3. Proficiency with web programming and scripting languages, such as PHP, and Python, and related web sweeping and text analysis software.
4. Experience managing the cloud servers that run the virtual and online experimental sessions.
5. Experience coding apps for smartphones.

Venue and days of work:
This role is based in India. Hence, the candidate should have work authorization in India (preferably Indian citizenship or Overseas Citizenship of India). This is a full-time role (Monday-Friday) for a duration of 3 years. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, CSBC has switched to a work-from-home model of operations. Given these circumstances, the role would be on-boarded and executed remotely. The person would need to have their own laptop and access to a functioning internet connection. They would need to be available through regular working calls to virtually join team discussions and to
support project requests.

How to apply:
Send your application to csbc@ashoka.edu.in
In your application please include:
● A cover letter, highlighting your experience relevant to the job requirements.
● CV (not exceeding two pages).