Project Associate – Energy, WRI India

Institution Overview:

World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, non-profit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being. Our work focuses on building sustainable and livable cities and working towards a low carbon economy. Through research, analysis, and recommendations, World Resources Institute puts ideas into action to build transformative solutions to protect the earth, promote livelihoods, and enhance human well-being.

WRI India has the capacity to convene key stakeholders, and forge strategic partnerships with governments, business, foundations, civil society organizations, institutes and NGOs, to scale-up solutions that can bring game-changing results for the sustainable management of natural resources in India.

Program Overview for Energy

The objective of the WRI India energy program is to inform and guide India’s transition to cleaner energy. The program focuses on three inter-related aspects of this energy transition: enhancing energy access, scaling renewables among specific consumer categories, and achieving higher levels of energy and buildings efficiency. Our energy access work is specifically aimed at ensuring access to affordable and clean energy so as to improve socio-economic development in rural and remote regions of India. Through strong research, ground-level implementation experience, partnerships with key stakeholders and communicating our work, we seek to achieve impact at scale.

Position Overview:

WRI India is seeking a Project Associate for its Energy Program. The project associate will work on the data analysis of public and primary data to inform improved decisions on advancing demand-driven solutions for affordable, reliable, clean energy to power sustainable development. Specific responsibilities will include supporting the development of the Energy Access Explorer—an online, open-source, interactive platform that uses mapping to visualize the state of energy access in unserved and underserved areas.

Key Responsibilities:

The preferred candidate will undertake a range of responsibilities as listed below.

• Conduct robust data analysis to support efforts on Energy Access Explorer platform, linkages between reliable electricity access and socio-economic development
• Develop innovative ways of identifying and collecting data where data quality and availability concerns exist
• Mining and collating electricity and socio-economic development related data (including with geo-spatial attributes) from secondary sources, cleaning and processing primary data from the field, reorganizing data in a standardized format that can be read by either human or machine
• Using statistical and machine learning tools to interpret data sets, identify trends and patterns that could be valuable for the project’s diagnostic and predictive analytics efforts
• Analyzing, translating and visualizing complex spatial and non-spatial data into information.
• Creating appropriate documentation that allows stakeholders to understand the steps of the data analysis process and duplicate or replicate the analysis, if necessary
• Identify key data indicators and data sets that identify the multi-sectoral aspects of the energy transition and reflect the relationship between electricity access and development
• Willing to travel to project site to establish networks with key stakeholders and support field team to enhance and sustain data collection efforts

Required Attributes and Credentials:

• At least two years of relevant work experience
• Completed a degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science, econometrics, data science or related fields
• Experience in conducting data mining, evaluation, analysis, and visualizations
• Experience of using programming languages and tools like Python, R, Stata, Macro functions in MS Excel for analyzing and interpreting data
• Experience of data analytics in Python (pandas, numpy) or R (dpylr, ggplots, Rshiny). Knowledge of pytorch, tensorflow will be an advantage
• Knowledge of key statistical databases pertaining to electricity and allied sectors, socio-economic development
• Understanding of geospatial data and its libraries in R and Python is strongly preferred
• Experience in interpreting and translating qualitative and quantitative analyses into material for various types of audience is strongly preferred
• Understanding of the electricity sector, clean energy transition and electricity access is preferable not mandatory

Duration: 1 Year extendable based on Performance and Project requirements 

Location: Virtual, India 

Potential Salary: 6,50,000 to 7,50,000 INR CTC PA

Salary and Benefits: 

Salary shall be commensurate with experience and skills. WRI offers a generous and comprehensive benefits package.

To Apply:

Only Qualified applicants should apply online at https://jobs.jobvite.com/wri/jobs. All applications must be submitted online through this career portal in order to be formally considered. 

List of Documents to be attached:

• Cover Letter
• Resume
• Writing Sample
• Reports

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted for interview purpose. Finalized candidate will be required to take a writing/analytical test.

We believe in equal employment, it is our policy to recruit, and provide opportunities for advancement in all job classifications without regard to caste, color, religion, sex, age, marital status, sexual preference, parental status, or disability.