The Sorenson Impact Center is seeking part-time student fellows to work with the Data Science team on a range of unique, impactful projects. Our work supports projects that do social good – reducing homelessness, increasing pre-k access for disadvantaged children, understanding crime patterns, or reducing recidivism, for example. This is a fast paced, constantly changing environment with new projects starting frequently (watch a short YouTube video to learn more about what we do). We look for highly motivated self-starters who have some or all of the following:
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Great communication and people skills. You will need to work with data owners/managers who have a choice about whether to help you or not.
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Great project management skills. There will be many simultaneous projects at any given time, and multiple parties to keep in contact with in order to ensure that the projects keep moving forward.
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Good writing skills and attention to detail. We produce reports for leaders in government and busy executives. Some are then cited in the news or even go on to affect private and public spending – so accuracy is critical.
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A good understanding of how data is used for statistical analyses. Not all or our team members will need to be experts in analysis or programming, but each should know enough to identify what data is useful, how it should be formatted, and be able to use this knowledge to write requests and reports.
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An understanding of, or ability to learn, the legal issues surrounding data sharing. You will need to be able to work in concert with the U’s legal staff to draft data use agreements custom fit to each partnership.
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Experience with literature reviews and data gathering. Sometimes the data we need comes from previous research, or exists in publicly available (but hard to find) data sets.
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Data analysis or programming experience. This is not required for all positions, but if you have this there will be opportunities to get involved in or even lead some projects involving analyses, data visualizations, and modeling. Our data scientists primarily use R, so it’s an excellent opportunity to learn more about one of the fastest growing languages.
Not only a part-time job, the Sorenson Impact Center is an exciting place to work and a great resume builder! If you are interested or would like to know more, apply at http://sorensonimpact.com/students.
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Jonathan Zadra, PhD
Data Scientist
Sorenson Impact Center
David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah
