Description

PREP Research Associate

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

Despite significant progress in science, technology, guidance, and tools related to disaster-mitigation, natural, technological, and human-caused hazard events in the United States still result in significant direct and indirect costs in terms of lives lost, disruption of commerce and financial networks, properties destroyed, and the cost of mobilizing emergency response personnel and equipment. Community resilience, the ability to withstand the impacts of natural, technological, or human-caused hazards and recover community functions quickly, is a local and a national issue. Just as the effects of a disruptive hazard event cascade locally through impacted infrastructure and society, they can also cascade across entire regions, or even nationally. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Community Resilience Program is (1) developing science-based tools and metrics to support and measure resilience at the community-scale (2) engaging community resilience stakeholders, and (3) conducting disaster and failure studies to develop expertise and metrology that support validation of community resilience tools.

The Engineering Laboratory (EL) Project, Development of a First-Generation Community Resilience Assessment Methodology, will work with the University of Maryland on the science needed to develop tools and metrics for communities to measure resilience at the community-scale. The assessment methodology must use a complex systems perspective in order to make linkages between social and physical systems, address resilience over time, and provide useful information to inform an understanding of the factors influencing recovery following a disruptive hazard event. The goal of this research is to develop a simplified, science-based community resilience assessment methodology that can be applied to communities of any size for the purpose of assessing baseline resilience as well as changes over time.

Research Title:

Community Resilience Metrics and Survey Research for Field Studies and Investigations

U.S. Citizen Preferred

The work will entail:

Indicator development, as well as statistical analysis, econometrics, scale development, validation studies, and communication of results in various formats to support the goals of developing a community resilience assessment methodology.

Key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

§ Carrying out indicator development methodologies,

§ Compiling and cleaning large datasets,

§ Determining methods to analyze complex data for validation,

§ Developing innovative methods and research directions that support goals,

§ Presenting results at internal meetings, and occasional meetings with external stakeholders,

§ Ensuring that results, protocols, datasets, and documentation have been archived or otherwise transmitted to the larger organization.

Qualifications

§ A PhD in Urban Planning or a Social Science discipline,

§ 5 years of relevant experience,

§ Expertise in statistical analysis,

§ Knowledge of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies,

§ Familiarity with publicly available data sources,

§ Ability to work with complex data at varying spatiotemporal scales,

§ Strong oral and written communication skills.

§ A PhD. in Civil or Structural Engineering, or a related field.

§ Ability to clearly write technical reports.

§ Strong oral and written communication skills.

Application Instructions

Please upload the following with your application:
• CV/Resume

*Please limit C.V to 3 pages only and ONLY include a valid email address for your contact info. Your resume will not be considered if the following information is included on your CV/resume.
• Self portraits
• Phone number
• Home address/Country
• Citizenship status
• Languages spoken

Sex/Gender