Research Assistant (Data)

Job Description

Data exploration:

The team’s objective is to mine the project’s data to seek insights that are either 1) directly beneficial to the study of offending, rehabilitation, and reintegration or 2) beneficial to other research teams who are studying this sample. Here is the full list of responsibilities:

• Wrangle data according to team’s needs.
• Generate, research, and implement data exploration ideas and methods.
• Perform data visualizations to summarize data exploration insights.
• Communicate ideas and insights clearly with the rest of the team.
• Document workflow and research outputs.

​​​​​​​Literature consultation:

The team is expected to build a knowledge base on offending, rehabilitation, and reintegration to guide the data exploration efforts. Once an adequate knowledge base has been built, the team might also be tasked to provide consultations to other research teams and/or organize presentations to share key findings from past literature. Here is the full list of responsibilities:

• Perform literature reviews according to team’s needs.
• Organize and summarize knowledge acquired from the literature.
• Communicate ideas and insights clearly with rest of the team.
• Provide consultations to other teams on domain areas within team’s expertise.
• Organize presentations to share findings from the team.

Qualifications

Minimum Education Qualification: A Bachelor’s degree and above in relevant areas

The key responsibilities of the team involve the generation of new ideas. As such, members are expected to be active thinkers who take initiative in their work and are comfortable in sharing and receiving new ideas. They are also expected to work well both independently and within a team environment. In terms of technical competencies, the research officer should be proficient in at least one of the following two sections.

Data exploration:

• Data cleaning.
• Basic programming proficiency (R or python).
• Data visualization.
• Descriptive analytics.
• Clustering methods (not necessary but preferable).

Literature consultation:

• Resourceful in consolidating knowledge from the literature.
• Good organization skills.
• Able to summarize academic papers clearly, accurately and concisely.
• Good communication and presentation skills.
• Prior knowledge in a related domain such as criminal psychology or rehabilitative methods (not necessary but preferable).

More Information

Project Information

This is a multi-agency national research project, known as the Enhancing Positive outcomes in Youth and the Community (EPYC). The project focuses on the rehabilitation and reintegration of youth offenders in Singapore. Presently, it is studying a longitudinal sample of youth offenders and youth at risk. It aims to study interactions between developmental and environmental factors with regard to offending, and understand the influence of these factors on successful rehabilitation and reintegration of youth into society.

The research officer will work within a team that focuses on exploring research ideas and generating insights from the project’s data and the literature. The team’s responsibilities can be broken down into two areas: data exploration and literature consultation. Each member is expected to contribute to one or both areas.