Research Associate

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Department: Schar School of Policy and Government

Classification: Research Staff 12-month

Job Category: Research Staff

Job Type: Full-Time

Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)

Location: Arlington, VA

Workplace Type: Hybrid Eligible

Sponsorship Eligibility: Not eligible for visa sponsorship

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience

Restricted: Yes

Criminal Background Check: Yes

About the Department:

The Schar School of Policy and Government (Schar School) provides undergraduate and graduate students the skills, knowledge, and analytic abilities to be leaders and managers in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.

About the Position:

The Research Associate supports the work of various studies focused on policies to advance interventions to interrupt involvement in criminal behavior, substance use behaviors and other risk behaviors, implementation studies, and/or interventions to create high performing organizations. Additionally, the position includes use of administrative data, overseeing human subject protocols, and statistical modeling.

Responsibilities:

• As part of a team, leads and/or works on study protocols;
• Responsible for data sets from various government agencies (local and state) to include: documentation of variables, construction of new variables, modifying and cleaning existing variables, and reconfiguring the data set to be a person event file;
• Creates and maintains research databases;
• Conducts interviews and/or focus groups;
• Conducts sophisticated statistical analyses using tools such as R, SPSS, Stata, SAS;
• Manages response rates including contacting users to increase interest in the study, working on messaging to attract respondents, and providing incentives and feedback;
• Collaborates with team members on empirical studies and research projects;
• Assists in the supervision and management of graduate research assistants and field staff;
• Works on data dashboards for user agencies;
• Assists in the design of new studies;
• Works on proposals to obtain new funding;
• Conducts review of legislative and procedural policies including laws, regulations, and procedures; and
• Compares existing policy based with research-based standards.

Required Qualifications:

• Master's degree in related field or the equivalent combination of education and experience;
• Significant relevant experience working on research studies in the intersection of health and justice or terminal degree;
• Experience with SPSS, R, STATA, and/or SAS;
• Demonstrated experience working with relational databases to extract and merge data from multiple sources;
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in statistical analysis (e.g., inferential statistics, multivariate statistics) and research design;
• Works with organizations in justice and health settings;
• Qualitative skills;
• Outstanding quantitative skills;
• Excellent presentation skills;
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills with various technical and non-technical audiences;
• Ability to manage multiple projects accurately and efficiently; and
• Strong interest in academic publication.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with administrative data sets, randomized controlled data, and working with teams from various institutions;
• Experience working with justice involved populations; and
• Working knowledge of a visualization tool such as SAS Viya, Tableau, Power BI, or R Shiny.

Instructions to Applicants:

For full consideration, applicants must apply for the Research Associate at https://jobs.gmu.edu/. Complete and submit the online application to include three professional references with contact information, and provide a cover letter/letter of intent and CV for review.

Posting Open Date: November 13, 2026

Posting Close Date: December 4, 2026

Open Until Filled: No