Senior Research Methodologist — Principal Investigator, Multimodal Survey Experiment

About the role

The Senior Research Methodologist position sits within ICF's Global Health and Development Practice, which serves clients such as the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of State, philanthropic funders, multilateral organizations, and national governments to strengthen health systems, generate evidence, and improve population health and development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. The practice has deep expertise in population-based surveys, health data systems, monitoring and evaluation, and technical assistance to national institutions.

Responsibilities

• Provide overall scientific leadership for the experiment from design through implementation, analysis, and dissemination, serving as the single point of technical accountability across two concurrent country tracks.
• Convene and lead a technical working group (TWG) of external experts, and finalize core design decisions — including content scope, representativeness targets, and content-triage grading criteria — with in-country co-PIs and partners.
• Lead development of the full study protocol and oversee IRB/ethics submissions in coordination with ICF and in-country ethics committees.
• Direct the analytic core of the study: sampling and power design, dual-frame estimation, the non-response and replacement protocol, mode-effects estimation, and small area estimation — working closely with the sampler, methodologist, and data scientist/modeler.
• Lead development and population of a cost-quality frontier, integrating activity-based cost and time data captured during fieldwork.
• Lead the final report(s) and peer-reviewed manuscripts, and represent the study in conference and stakeholder presentations.
• Serve as the primary technical liaison to the funder and to in-country partners, ensuring strong country ownership and adherence to Global Access and open-data commitments.
• Mentor and coordinate a multidisciplinary team; while this position has no direct personnel-management authority, the PI is responsible for project leadership and technical task management in close collaboration with survey managers and finance/operations staff.

Requirements

• Doctoral degree (Ph.D. or equivalent) in demography, statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, a social/behavioral science, or a related quantitative field; OR a master's degree in one of these fields with 20+ years of relevant experience.
• Minimum 15 years of experience in survey research design and implementation, applied to population-based or public health surveys (or 20+ years with a master's degree, as above).
• Deep expertise in probability sampling, weighting, complex survey design, and estimation, with the ability to independently conduct and interpret advanced analyses (e.g., dual-frame estimation, mode-effects analysis, small area estimation, equivalence testing) and to mentor others.
• Demonstrated experience with household survey operations in low- and middle-income countries.
• Significant writing experience, including study protocols, client/funder reports, and peer-reviewed publications.
• Demonstrated experience conceptualizing and leading research grants or contracts.
• Demonstrated track record of methodological thought leadership, such as conference presentations and peer-reviewed articles.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with DHS or DHS-like surveys and with biomarker (e.g., malaria RDT) data collection.
• Experience conducting survey research in West and/or Central Africa.
• Familiarity with phone-based and multimodal data collection (RDD, list-based, or hybrid designs) and the measurement challenges they raise.
• Experience partnering with national statistical offices, ministries, or other in-country institutions.
• Working proficiency in French.

Professional Skills

• Attention to detail, organized, and proactive; able to manage multiple competing tasks and deadlines and negotiate prioritization.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication, including the ability to convey methodological concepts to varied audiences — funders, country partners, and technical teams.
• Able to make sound methodological decisions under real-world timing and budget constraints, including protecting scientific integrity when tradeoffs arise.
• Able to drive project progress across concurrent country tracks and a distributed team, in close collaboration with in-country co-PIs and ICF operations staff.
• Comfortable working across time zones and cultures with international partners.

Pay

Pay Range - There are multiple factors that are considered in determining final pay for a position, including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and competencies that align to the specified role, geographic location, education and certifications as well as contract provisions regarding labor categories that are specific to the position. The pay range for this position based on full-time employment is: $119,323.00 - $202,850.00 Nationwide Remote Office (US99)