Senior Research Associate

Job Description

Given the importance of reducing corporate emissions to address climate change, we need to better understand how these pledges work and design strategies to ensure they are effective. However, there is a lack of information and analysis about whether corporate net-zero goals result in real emissions reductions. This project, led by a cross-disciplinary team of experts in environmental and administrative law, environmental economics and policy, and sustainable business strategy, supported by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard, aims to analyze the impact of U.S. companies' commitments and the implications for U.S. policy.

As a Senior Research Associate, you will be responsible for:

• Project Leadership & Cross-Institutional Coordination. Serving as the primary operational lead for the project, directing timelines, workflows, and deliverables across a multi-institutional research team that includes co-Principal Investigators from Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Business School, as well as postdoctoral researchers and a team of Research Assistants.
• Team Supervision & Professional Development. Supervising, training, and mentoring a team of Research Assistants, including reviewing their code and analytic output, setting performance standards, and making final quality control decisions in consultation with co-PIs.
• Data Collection & Quality Control Oversight. Designing, implementing, and overseeing a complex, multi-stage data collection and quality control process, maintaining responsibility for dataset integrity and version control across all project phases.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Feedback Management. Developing and managing an end-to-end process for soliciting, receiving, and adjudicating feedback from approximately 3,000 companies in the study sample, including final authority over corrections and updates to the dataset.
• Technology & Automation Leadership. Directing the development of an automated data collection and quality control pipeline in collaboration with an LLM specialist and co-PIs, translating research requirements into technical specifications and overseeing delivery.
• Website & Communications Oversight. Leading the development of the project's public-facing website in coordination with an external web development contractor, providing substantive content including charts, tables, and written materials, and ensuring alignment with research goals.
• Public Launch & Media Strategy. Directing the preparation and execution of the project's public launch, coordinating with Harvard media specialists and co-PIs to manage communications strategy, timelines, and deliverables.
• Scholarly Output & Research Leadership. Serving as primary author of the methodological white paper documenting dataset construction, quality control procedures, and research applications. Lead and co-author empirical research papers throughout the full publication lifecycle including data analysis, table and figure production, writing, editing, and management of submission timelines.
• External Engagement & Dissemination. Representing the project externally through outreach activities designed to build visibility for the dataset and website among academic, policy, and practitioner audiences.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• Master's degree
• 3+ years related work experience performing research (quantitative or qualitative) required
• Supervisory experience