Research Associate

CarbonPlan is a nonprofit organization using science and data to accelerate climate action. Our team analyzes the design and implementation of climate programs across the public and private sector, and builds open datasets, models, and interactive tools. Our work currently focuses on carbon accounting and climate impacts. In both, we aim to ensure the scientific integrity and transparency of climate services and solutions. You can read more about our work on our website.

A core part of our mission is to create public resources on climate solutions and climate impacts based on the best available science and data. As climate impacts accelerate, it has become urgent to understand current and future risk at the level of individual buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. But even as public need grows, climate risk data is increasingly privatized — and expensive, opaque, and unvetted. In response, we built the first fully open platform for estimating wildfire risk to U.S. buildings. Now we are expanding this work to inform adaptation and mitigation policy, with a focus on the intersection of climate risk and affordability. As a Research Associate, you will be responsible for research tasks that support this area of work, and also help scope and implement other projects to inform decision-making around climate impacts and climate solutions. You will report to Grayson Badgley, Research Scientist, and work closely with other members of our collaborative, interdisciplinary team.

You will:  

• Assist in research on climate impacts. Initial areas of focus will include at least one of the following: climate risk modeling and the private risk analytics industry, wildfire adaptation and mitigation, and scoping potential new work. 
• Contribute to CarbonPlan research articles, tools, blog posts, and scientific journal articles.
• Support efforts to engage media, research, and decision-making communities.
• Work collaboratively with other team members at CarbonPlan and external partners.

Requirements

You should have:

• Passion for our mission.
• A degree or training in the Earth sciences, environmental science, data science, statistics, economics, or another field relevant to climate solutions and impacts.
• Strong non-academic written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience conducting interdisciplinary and/or policy-relevant research.
• Experience with data analysis, and demonstrated attention to detail when working with data.
• Experience with scientific programming (e.g., Python) or other relevant coding experience.
• Ability to hold multiple responsibilities and meet deadlines while working remotely.
• Curiosity, collegiality, and an affinity for working in highly collaborative and cross-functional environments.

You’ll be an especially good fit if you have:

• Experience working directly on climate risk modeling or adaptation.
• Experience thinking about the political economy of climate change.
• Experience at the boundary of science and decision-making processes.
• Experience with academic research and publication processes.
• Experience with scientific Python, Jupyter notebooks, and related tools.
• Experience with git, GitHub, and testing frameworks.
• Experience with open source software development.

CarbonPlan is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace. If you are interested in this role, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every qualification exactly as listed. All applications will be considered. If you need accommodations during the application process, please let us know.

Benefits

We are committed to providing competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits to our employees. We offer fixed salary levels based on experience and role to minimize biases in compensation and to ensure team members are paid the same for doing the same work. Employees are eligible for promotion every six months at the time of their performance review. 

This is a regular, full-time position, with an annual salary of $115,000. In addition to salary, we offer a comprehensive set of benefits to all full-time employees:

• Health insurance (99% of costs covered for employees, 75% for dependents)
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Flexible health spending accounts
• Dependent care spending accounts
• Life insurance
• 401(k) retirement fund with employer contribution
• Generous paid time off policy
• 16 weeks paid parental leave
• Remote work expense reimbursements

We are not currently able to sponsor a visa for this position, and therefore can only consider applications from people who are already authorized to work in the United States. We work remotely. The hiring manager for this role is in Seattle. Remote work from any location in the United States works for us.

To apply

In lieu of a cover letter, please provide answers to the questions in the application form. We ask that you write the answers to these questions on your own, without assistance from an LLM. While we sometimes use LLMs in our work, we want to learn about you, your expertise, and your motivations through the hiring process.