Senior Research Specialist

Position Details

Recruitment/Posting

Title:

Senior Research Specialist

Job Category: Staff & Executive - Research (Laboratory/Non-Laboratory)

Department: Urban Policy Research Center

The Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR) works to make human settlements more equitable, sustainable, resilient, and healthy through research, public engagement, education, and other forms of capacity‑building. CUPR is now an umbrella center that combines the former Bloustein stand‑alone Center for Urban Policy Research with the former Rutgers Center for Green Building (RCGB), Environmental Analysis and Communication Group (EAC), Center for Energy, Environmental and Economic Policy (CEEEP), and Bloustein Center for Local Government Research.

This merger creates strong capabilities for addressing today’s challenges in a collaborative and multidisciplinary fashion. These challenges include climate change adaptation and mitigation, coastal hazards, environmental justice, a healthier built environment, sustainable energy transition, and technological transformations affecting daily life and local governance.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Senior Research Specialist for the Urban Policy Research Center. Reporting to the Senior Executive Director of the Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR), the Senior Research Specialist is responsible for leading the energy engineering work of the center, which includes designing, developing, executing and overseeing projects entailing building and energy cost modeling;

stock‑level simulation of building electrification strategies; energy efficiency program evaluation; feasibility studies for clean energy technology deployment; development, analysis and management of complex data sets; and periodic fieldwork. The Senior Research Specialist will demonstrate superior technical writing and presentation development, including data visualizations, professional conduct in interacting with clients and with co‑workers and other stakeholders.

Key duties:

• Oversees full‑time staff and supervises student researchers and consultants to ensure that energy engineering analyses undertaken are performed accurately, efficiently, and are communicated effectively to their intended audiences.
• Supports the development of new external grants and contracts by developing research and data analysis protocols and methodologies and timelines for tasks and deliverables.
• Develops projects independently as a principal investigator.
• Interacts with external stakeholders including clients and industry groups and advances efforts at technology commercialization of several innovations that have been developed by members of the CUPR team.
• Works with a team of researchers in the built environment group at the Center for Urban Policy Research on externally funded projects supporting the sustainable energy transition and will collaborate with the Data Informatics Group at CUPR.

Minimum

Education and Experience:

Master’s degree in engineering, Data Science/Informatics, Architecture or related field with at least 3 years’ experience working as a power systems engineer, HVAC design engineer, energy efficiency analyst or related or an equivalent combination of education and/or experience.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Experience using geographic information systems (GIS), ArcGIS, and spatial analysis datasets and in statistical analysis using a software platform such as R, Python, MATLAB, STATA, SAS, or others. Proficiency in energy modeling/simulation and cost estimating using such platforms as Design Builder and Energy Plus and, for cost analysis, RSMeans.
• Experience documenting datasets, including the creation or metadata or methodology documents, with competency in SQL or similar.
• Ability to work independently, develop analytical approaches and work plans, and utilize best practices for data creation and management.
• Professional knowledge and demonstrated application to clean energy research of building energy systems, energy systems/power infrastructure, building energy codes, building energy modeling, cost estimating, and energy efficiency…