Spring 2024 Internship Opportunities – J-PAL North America

J-PAL North America, a research center within the Economics department at MIT, is seeking interns to join its team and contribute to its mission to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. J-PAL North America conducts randomized evaluations, builds partnerships for evidence-informed policymaking, and helps partners scale up effective programs. As a regional office of the global Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, J-PAL North America leverages research by affiliated professors from universities across the world to generate and disseminate rigorous evidence about which anti-poverty social policies work and why.

As a member of the J-PAL North America team, you will be part of a Nobel-prize winning scientific movement that can transform US policy making. We are currently recruiting for two to three interns to work closely with members of the research, policy, and communications teams to support a range of substantive projects and help with some critical administrative tasks. This is a 16 week part-time (15-20 hours per week) paid internship from January – May 2024. This position is based at J-PAL North America’s office on the MIT Campus in Cambridge, MA. Interns may follow a hybrid schedule, but are expected to be in office at least 8 hours per week, with at least four hours completed on a Tuesday or Wednesday. This position pays an hourly rate of $23.00/hour.

Qualifications

• Education: You have a high school diploma or equivalent and have successfully completed some college level coursework in economics, public policy, business administration, education, public health or other related subjects. You are currently enrolled in an accredited college or university. We are currently seeking undergraduate students who are rising sophomores or juniors, or with an expected graduation date of May 2025, May 2026, or May 2027. We will not consider students with an expected graduation date of May 2024 or earlier. We also give preference to second semester freshmen and sophomores.
• Experience and Interest: Regardless of your declared major, you are interested in the field of economics as it relates to alleviating poverty. You have a demonstrated interest in using results from research to inform policy change. You have experience in direct service, research, policy, education, or public health, through student leadership, an internship, or other part-time or full-time work experience.
• Communication Skills: You have strong oral and written communication, editing, and writing skills. Spanish language fluency is a plus.
• Organization/Attention to Detail: Your robust organizational capacity and ability to pay careful attention to detail enable you to effectively handle several projects at once and meet deadlines.

Responsibilities

With support and supervision from a mentor, interns are expected to complete a project during the course of their internship. At this time, we are recruiting for each of the special projects, described below.

Project #1:

Description:

J-PAL North America currently seeks an intern to support a project team through creating a strategy to collect data on the project and updating data collection tools. J-PAL North America supports the Economics Transformation Project (ETP) which is a student-informed, partnership-based pathway program that aims to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive field of economics for scholars from backgrounds historically underrepresented in economics. Together with local high schools, universities, and other partner organizations, ETP’s suite of programs offer insights into the applications and impacts of applied economic research and equip underrepresented students with the necessary information, skills, mentors, and networks to progress in the profession. The ETP project team is an example of the type of team an intern may support, subject to funding. The ideal candidate will communicate effectively with project teams and project stakeholders, and have an interest in reducing barriers to access in the economics field for scholars who are historically underrepresented.

Organizational Need:

J-PAL North America wants to continuously improve and communicate the impact of its programming. To do this, we must develop a strategic plan for collecting data in order for collected data to inform project teams.

Goals:

• Project teams strategically collect data from their partners to provide feedback on key goals.
• Data collection tools (such as surveys) are employed to collect data that is both valid and reliable.

Deliverables:

• Intern supports the development of a strategic data collection plan for a project team.
• Intern helps to create data collection tools aligned with the team’s strategic plan.
• Intern compiles a data report to assess the impact of the project team with key metrics and qualitative information.
• Intern presents this work to J-PAL staff.

Project #2:

Description:

J-PAL North America currently seeks an intern to support the education team through supporting synthesis of research results and research best practices. The education team works to support research and share research results on ways to improve student learning and expand access to quality education. Education is often described as a pathway to mobility, yet schools in the United States continue to fall short on key indicators of a quality education, and low-income students and students of color are disproportionately left behind. The education team has focus areas of tutoring, education technology, family engagement, AI, and access to college, among others. The ideal candidate will clearly communicate research findings through written work.

Organizational Need:

J-PAL creates synthesis products to summarize research findings on a body of research (see an example from tutoring). Currently there is a need to synthesize research results for new focus areas. Additionally, there is a need to summarize and share research best practices internally at J-PAL North America.

Goals:

• J-PAL North America expands its synthesis products in new educational focus areas.
• J-PAL North America internally supports learning and shares research best practices with staff.

Deliverables:

• Intern supports collecting relevant literature on a focus area.
• Intern supports the development of a synthesis product through drafting language and copyediting.
• Intern supports development of an internal knowledge sharing process that is integrated into existing practices at J-PAL.
• Intern presents their work to J-PAL staff.

Project #3:

Description:

J-PAL North America currently seeks an intern to support a project team through analyzing collected data on the project and communicating key trends with relevant team members. The LEVER team works to support state and local governments in conducting research about efforts to reduce policy. Understanding the impacts of policy alleviation efforts is critical to strengthen community resilience in the long-term and advance equity for all. Governments committed to identifying and scaling the most effective approaches through evaluation and evidence are needed to make those decisions. The ideal candidate will communicate effectively with project teams and project stakeholders and have an interest in using research to support policy.

Organizational Need:

J-PAL assists many state and local governments in conducting research on programs and in using research results to inform funding decisions. A data-informed outreach strategy will be useful to ensure that J-PAL is engaging interested government stakeholders.

Goals:

• J-PAL North America strategically engages government partners.
• J-PAL North America understands which government partners it currently engages and identifies goals for targeted outreach.

Deliverables:

• Intern supports the analyzing collected data on state and local government partners.
• Intern compiles a data report to assess the current state of engagement with government partners.
• Intern summarizes key findings and takeaways from the data to support development of a targeted outreach strategy.
• Intern presents this work to J-PAL staff.

Additional Responsibilities

In addition to completing a project, interns will support various project teams at J-PAL North America.

Research and Policy tasks:

• Providing programmatic and operational assistance to J-PAL North America’s initiatives (examples include the Education Initiative, Health Care Delivery Initiative, State and Local Innovation Initiative, and Worker Prosperity Initiative) to support our work with researchers, policymakers, and implementing partners.
• Providing data entry and cleaning support to our organization-wide database (Salesforce).
• Provide logistical and administrative support to project teams.

Communication tasks:

Assisting with monthly newsletters, blog post development, and other content creation Support social media strategy and platform optimization for J-PAL North America, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the J-PAL blog.

Event-Related tasks:

• Supporting trainings and courses such as our annual Research Staff Training or our annual Evaluating Social Programs course.
• Preparing and formatting presentations for a variety of audiences.

Learning opportunities:

• Opportunities to attend seminars, engage in small-group discussions with other J-PAL staff
• Participate in events, workshops and webinars offered by J-PAL and MIT.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to address the complex causes and consequences of poverty. To advance our mission, J-PAL North America must draw on diverse experiences from our staff and affiliated researchers in order to ask better questions and identify better solutions. We are working to increase the limited representation of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in the economics profession. Our organization is implementing strategies to attract, develop, and advance a diverse staff and building a pipeline to increase diversity among economic researchers. We are committed to engaging in self-reflection, learning, and dialogue to nurture understanding across differences. Together, we will build an equitable, inclusive culture where everyone is respected, empowered, and heard.

To learn more about our work and team culture, see our Join Our Team brochure or visit www.povertyactionlab.org/na.

Timeline & Hiring Process

• November 10th: Applications due
• Week of November 20th: Competitive applicants will be invited to interview
• November 27th – December 8th: Applicant interviews
• January 29th: Internships begin