The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is now hiring a faculty research assistant to work at START’s headquarters at the University of Maryland, College Park. This is a full-time position, with an initial term of 12 months.
Responsibilities:
The GTD consists of unclassified data on over 100,000 terrorist attacks that have occurred worldwide since 1970. It supports a wide range of users, including government, academia, media, and the general public. The Data Collection Manager is responsible for managing resources and efforts related to the ongoing collection and coding of terrorism event data for the GTD. Tasks for this position include:
- Managing a large team of domain supervisors, full-time research assistants, graduate research assistants, and interns tasked with data collection and coding
- Devising and implementing new data collection and coding strategies, and altering existing procedures as needed
- Managing the pace of data collection and coding in order to meet strict deadlines
- Developing new procedures for quality control and implementing those procedures on a routine basis to ensure highly accurate and consistent data
- Working with the GTD Software Architect and the GTD Program Manager to devise new strategies for managing and processing source articles
- Establishing expertise on GTD data collection practices and serving as a resource to support data collection staff as well as end-users of the database
- Working with the GTD Program Manager to determine staffing needs and deliver routine performance evaluations
- Training new team members on the process of identifying terrorism incidents as well as cross-domain GTD coding procedures
Required Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in discipline related to terrorism and political violence
- 3+ years systematic data collection and management experience
- 3+ years project/team management experience
- 3+ years of graduate or post-graduate research experience related to terrorism or political violence
- Advanced training in research methods, including quantitative and qualitative techniques
- Strong proficiency with MS Excel (e.g. pivot tables, functions, advanced filtering) and statistical software (e.g. SAS, Stata, SPSS, etc.)
- Demonstrated ability to successfully manage a project in a fast-paced and deadline-driven environment
Preferred Qualifications:
- Ph.D. in discipline related to terrorism and political violence
- Familiarity with advanced data collection and management tools, such as machine learning, named entity recognition (NER), and content-based de-duplication
- 1+ years experience managing a data collection of similar size and complexity
The annual salary for this position will be in the range of $65,000 to $70,000 (depending on education and experience), plus full University of Maryland benefits (as explained here). The person selected for this position will work on site at START’s headquarters on campus at the University of Maryland, College Park, and will report directly to the GTD Program Manager.
Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter and CV/resumé, including contact information for three professional references. Apply on the university website at https://ejobs.umd.edu/postings/22094.
Applicants will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Candidates are encouraged to apply by October 14, 2013 for best consideration.
Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. The University of Maryland is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.