Senior Researcher (Animal Welfare Department)

Rethink Priorities is looking for a Senior Researcher in the Animal Welfare Department.

Overview:

• Flexible contract
• Language: English
• Location: Anywhere (Remote)
• Salary: $90,000 – $106,000 per year (FTE) + benefits
• Applications closing: 26th March

Job Description

The types of tasks involved in the role

Within the first year, you are likely to do most of the following at least once:

• Conduct a literature review to get a better sense of the scale of an issue negatively affecting animals
• Model the cost-effectiveness analysis on an intervention to reduce animal suffering
• Identify and interview experts to address questions that cannot be easily answered by consulting academic or grey literature.
• Deliver an oral presentation on your recent work at a conference, and network with other attendees.
• Help organise a coordination event to help the animal movement prioritise which issues to tackle next.

Check out the executive summaries of our reports on investments into insect farming, institutional meat reduction campaigns, and labeling restrictions for alternative proteins to get a sense of the types of questions you would investigate. Many of our projects are self-generated, based on ideas that we believe deserve more attention, while others are requested directly from mission-aligned philanthropic or advocacy organisations.

Responsibilities

• Engaging with external stakeholders to identify how to create deliverables to their preferred specifications.
• Building Fermi estimates and forecasts, explicitly incorporating uncertainty.
• Drafting well-written reports from inception to delivery, with minimal oversight.
• Ensuring that projects remain on track, and proactively identify mitigation measures when barriers arise.
• Assessing how sociopolitical and economic developments may pose threats or opportunities for animals

Role Requirements

Required skills and competencies:

• An abiding commitment to the mission of Rethink Priorities’ Animal Welfare Department
• Ability and willingness to learn how to use and interpret a wide variety of methods, including quantitative concepts and models.
• Excellent at explaining the premises and inferences involved in a chain of reasoning
• The ability to communicate clearly about complex concepts that may be unfamiliar to your target audience.
• Resourcefulness to identify tractable ways to address open-ended questions
• A steadfast commitment to truth seeking and principles of research ethics
• Professionalism in interactions with all colleagues and external stakeholders
• Comfort with remote work and asynchronous collaboration using technologies like G Suite (we’re a remote-first organisation with staff in multiple time zones)

• Proficiency with R or Python
• Skill in using strategic decision-making tools (e.g., SWOT analysis, PEST analysis, stakeholder mapping, etc.)

Knowledge and Experience

• 5+ years conducting relevant research
  • Many topics count as “relevant,” including (a) animal welfare science, (b) evaluating or informing government policy, (c) consulting to inform decisions in an industry, or (d) regular use of quantitative models.
  • If your research during a master’s or PhD program was relevant, it counts towards this requirement.
• At least one past role where a key responsibility involved liaising with external stakeholders to ensure that your research outputs are tailored to their needs.
• Comfort with using consequentialist moral frameworks and assessing opportunities in terms of their marginal cost-effectiveness.

• Experience working in or volunteering for the animal advocacy movement
• Knowledge about politicians, parties, and policies in a jurisdiction that produces or consumes a large number of animals.
• Knowledge of methods for assessing sentience and welfare in nonhuman animals.
• Expertise in supply chains for farmed-raised food or feed (e.g., import markets for aquaculture products).

How to apply?

To apply for this role, please fill in the application form.

There are 5 evaluation stages: (1) application prompts, (2) work samples, (3) skills assessment, (4) interviews and (5) reference checks.  You can find more details about what each stage includes here.

Only candidates that meet the minimal bar at a given stage will proceed to the next stage. We aim to complete assessments of each stage within one to two weeks, so that you can learn quickly whether you will proceed to the next stage.

Tagged as: Animal Welfare