Senior Researcher, AI Civics

About the role

Data & Society is seeking a Senior Researcher, AI Civics who will lead on a two-year program focusing on civic action and community control over AI. The role involves cultivating relationships, leading partnerships, and producing research and educational materials.

Responsibilities

• Draw on expertise in participatory research methods to cultivate and steward relationships with partner organizations and community members.
• Lead one or more collaborative relationships with an anchor partner for the co-creation and diffusion of AI Civics resources using participatory methods, especially participatory action research.
• Co-develop and direct the iterative improvement of toolkits, facilitation guides, and training curricula.
• Help coordinate and/or run piloting, feedback collection, and revision cycles, rooted in community needs and interests to advance the AI Civics objectives.
• Produce D&S case studies, educational materials, templates, reports, academic publications, lectures, and public writing on those topics.
• Partner with the Program Director with facilitation preparation for co-design workshops, train-the-trainer sessions, and participatory research activities with anchor partner organizations and their local member cohorts.
• Drive forward programmatic work, including developing research questions, strategies, and new external partnerships, in close collaboration with the AI Civics Program Director.
• Coordinate across internal teams to produce public outputs from the program.
• Contribute to the Data & Society research culture and community, including regularly joining Research team meetings, seminars, and events.
• Network Engagement: Assist with communications to the AI Civics partner network, including updates, event announcements, and follow-up summary notes and agreements from convenings.
• Fundraising: Participate in fundraising efforts, such as applying for grants and drafting materials for the Development Team to use.
• Organizational Development: Contribute to the intellectual life of the organization as an active participant in internal programming: attending talks, participating in seminars or reading groups, and contributing to the development of research management practices.
• Attend whole-organization activities such as staff meetings, retreats, town halls, listening sessions, workshops, training and social events.
• Participate, where able and appropriate, in contributing to the culture of D&S by participating in working groups and committees.

Qualifications

• Graduate degree or equivalent required.
• Expertise in one or more sectors of interest to the program: K-12 education, labor, faith groups, or another institutional pillar of civic life as it relates to data-centric technologies and AI.
• Minimum of 7-10 years experience in research organizations or research environment within organizations (university, public policy, advocacy, government, etc).
• Strong track record of seeing research through to publication.
• Public profile and ability to connect with non-academic audiences via writing and speaking.
• Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated experience working with colleagues to see research through to successful outcomes.
• Ability to coordinate and conduct in-depth qualitative research.
• Comfort with a fast-paced work environment at a rapidly evolving organization.
• Strong organizational, analytic, and writing skills, and familiarity with academic literature in their discipline.
• Ability to coordinate with other team members and the D&S community.

Skills

• Strong communication skills; exhibits good listening and comprehension, as well as outstanding writing and editorial ability.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects with inter-organizational dependencies.
• Familiarity with issues around the intersection of technology and public power.
• Strong analytical, reasoning, organizational, argumentation, and problem-solving skills.
• Confronts difficult situations, adapts to changes in the work environment, maintains objectivity, able to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events, changes approach or method to best fit the situation.
• Leadership ability to make timely decisions, includes appropriate people in decision-making process, exhibits sound and accurate judgement.
• Displays ability to facilitate groups to come to consensus.
• Inspires respect and trust, exhibits confidence in self and others.

Core Competencies

• Strong communication skills; exhibits good listening and comprehension, as well as outstanding writing and editorial ability.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects with inter-organizational dependencies.
• Familiarity with issues around the intersection of technology and public power.
• Strong analytical, reasoning, organizational, argumentation, and problem-solving skills.
• Confronts difficult situations, adapts to changes in the work environment, maintains objectivity, able to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events, changes approach or method to best fit the situation.
• Leadership ability to make timely decisions, includes appropriate people in decision-making process, exhibits sound and accurate judgement.
• Displays ability to facilitate groups to come to consensus.
• Inspires respect and trust, exhibits confidence in self and others.

Organizational Values and Participation

• Commitment to advancing organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Actively participate in programs and professional development opportunities that work to ensure we continue our commitment to being an anti-racist and anti-discrimination organization.